illlilliii 


ACKENZIE 


UBRARY  %n\ 

WIIYERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  '   T 

RIVERSIDE 


CARNIVAL 


BY 


COMPTON   MACKENZIE 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  PASSIONATE  ELOPEMENT" 


NEW  YORK 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

1913 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  Slates  of  America 


TO 

MARTIN  SECKER 


*^Put  out  the  light ;  and  then — put  out 
the  lightr 


Contents 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

The  Birth  of  Columbine  .        .        .      i 

II. 

Fairies  at  the  Christening 

.        8 

III. 

Dawn  Shadows     . 

.      l8 

IV. 

The  Ancient  Mischief 

.      30 

V. 

Pretty  Apples  in  Eden 

.      40 

VI. 

Shepherd's  Calendar  . 

.      51 

VII. 

Ambition  Wakes  . 

.      61 

VIII. 

Ambition  Looks  in  the  Glass 

.      71 

IX. 

Life,  Art,  and  Love     . 

.      89 

X. 

Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden 

.    108 

XI. 

The  Orient  Palace  of  Varieties 

.    120 

XII. 

Growing  Old        .... 

131 

XIII. 

The  Ballet  of  Cupid  . 

.    140 

XIV. 

Rain  on  the  Roof 

152 

XV. 

Cras   Amet    . 

.    153 

XVI. 

Love's  Halcyon     . 

165 

XVII. 

Columbine  Asleep 

175 

XVIII. 

Sweet  and  Twenty 

176 

XIX. 

The  Gift  of  Opals 

186 

XX. 

Fete  Galante 

199 

XXI. 

Epilogue 

216 

XXII. 

The  Unfinished  Statue 

221 

XXIII. 

Two  Letters 

234 

XXIV. 

Journey's  End 

241 

XXV. 

Monotone 

249 

XXVI. 

In  Scyros       .... 

255 

XXVII. 

Quartette     .... 

271 

Contents 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

XXVIII. 

St.  Valentine's  Eve 

.   282 

XXIX. 

Columbine  at  Dawn    . 

.   288 

XXX. 

LuGETE,  O  Veneres 

.    289 

XXXI. 

A  Document  in  Madness  . 

.    298 

XXXII. 

Pageantry  of  Death  . 

.    303 

XXXIII. 

Loose  Ends    .... 

•    310 

XXXIV. 

Mr.  Z.  Trewhella 

.    317 

XXXV. 

Marriage  of  Columbine 

.    332 

XXXVI. 

The  Tragic  Loading    . 

.   341 

XXXVII. 

Columbine  in  the  Dark 

.  349 

XXXVIII. 

The  Alien  Corn  . 

.  350 

XXXIX. 

Intermezzo   .... 

.  359 

XL. 

Harvest  Home 

.  367 

XLI. 

Columbine  Happy 

•  370 

XLII. 

Shaded  Sunlight  . 

•  371 

XLIII. 

Bow  Bells     .... 

.  377 

XLIV. 

Picking  up  Threads  . 

.  382 

XLV. 

London    Pride 

.  389 

XLVI. 

May  Morning 

•  394 

XLVII. 

NiGHTLIGHT  TiME 

.  399 

XLVIII. 

Carni  Vale  .... 

.  404 

Vl' 


chapter  I:    The  Birth  of  Columbine 

ALL  day  long  over  the  gray  Islington  Street  October, 
casting  pearly  mists,  had  turned  the  sun  to  silver 
•  and  made  London  a  city  of  meditation  whose  tumbled 
roofs  and  parapets  and  glancing  spires  appeared  hushed  and 
translucent  as  in  a  lake's  tranquillity. 

The  traffic,  muted  by  the  glory  of  a  fine  autumn  day, 
marched,  it  seemed,  more  slowly  and  to  a  sound  of  heavier 
drums.  Like  mountain  echoes  street  cries  haunted  the  bur- 
nished air,  while  a  muffin-man,  abroad  too  early  for  the  sea- 
son, swung  his  bell  intermittently  with  a  pastoral  sound. 
Even  the  milk-cart,  heard  in  the  next  street,  provoked  the 
imagination  of  distant  armor.  The  houses  seemed  to  acquire 
from  the  gray  and  silver  web  of  October  enchantment  a 
mysterious  immensity.  There  was  no  feeling  of  stressful 
humanity  even  in  the  myriad  sounds  that,  in  a  sheen  of 
beauty,  floated  about  the  day.  The  sun  went  down  behind 
roofs  and  left  the  sky  plumed  with  rosy  feathers.  There  was 
a  cold  gray  minute  before  dusk  came  stealing  in,  richly  and 
profoundly  blue:  then  night  sprang  upon  the  street,  and 
through  the  darkness  an  equinoctial  wind  swept,  moaning. 

Along  the  gutters  the  brown  leaves  danced:  the  tall  plane 
tree  at  the  end  of  the  street  would  not  be  motionless  until 
December  should  freeze  the  black  branches  in  diapery  against 
a  somber  sky.  Along  the  gutters  the  leaves  whispered  and 
ran  and  shivered  and  leaped,  while  the  gas-jets  flapped  in 
pale  lamps. 

There  was  no  starshine  on  the  night  Jenny  Raeburn  was 

I 


2  Carnival 

born,  only  a  perpetual  sound  of  leaves  dancing  and  the  foot- 
steps of  people  going  home. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  had  not  been  very  conscious  of  the  day's 
calm  beauty.  Her  travail  had  been  long:  the  reward  scarcely 
apprehended.  Already  two  elder  children  had  closed  upon 
her  the  gates  of  youth,  and  she  was  inclined  to  resent  the 
expense  of  so  much  pain  for  an  additional  tie.  There  was 
not  much  to  make  the  great  adventure  of  childbirth  endurable. 
The  transitory  amazement  of  a  few  relatives  was  a  meager 
consolation  for  the  doubts  and  agonies  of  nine  slow  months. 
But  the  muslin  curtains,  tied  back  with  raflfish  pink  bows,  had 
really  worried  her  most  of  all.  Something  was  wrong  with 
them:    their  dinginess  or  want  of  symmetry  annoyed   her. 

With  one  of  those  rare  efforts  towards  imaginative  com- 
prehension, which  the  sight  of  pain  arouses  in  dull  and  stolid 
men,  her  husband  had  inquired,  when  he  came  back  from 
work,  whether  there  was  anything  he  could  do. 

"Those  curtains,"  she  had  murmured. 

"Don't  you  get  worrying  yourself  about  curtains,"  he  had 
replied.  "You've  got  something  better  to  do  than  aggravate 
yourself  with  curtains.     The  curtains  is  all  right." 

Wearily  she  had  turned  her  face  to  the  sad-colored  wall- 
paper. Wearily  she  had  transferred  her  discontent  to  the 
absence  of  one  of  the  small  brass  knobs  at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 

"And  that  knob.     You  never  remember  to  get  a  new  one." 

"Now  it's  knobs!"  he  had  exclaimed,  wondering  at  the 
foolishness  of  a  woman's  mind  in  the  shadows  of  coming 
events.  "Don't  you  bother  your  head  about  knobs,  either. 
Try  and  get  a  bit  of  sleep  or  something,  do." 

With  this  exhortation,  he  had  retired  from  the  darkening 
room,  to  wander  round  the  house  lighting  various  jets  of  gas, 
turning  them  down  to  the  faintest  blue  glimmer,  and  hoping 
all  the  while  that  one  of  his  wife's  sisters  would  not  emerge 
from  the  country  at  the  rumor  of  the  baby's  arrival,  in  order 
to  force  her  advice  upon  a  powerless  household. 

Edith  and  Alfred,  his  two  elder  children,  had  been  carried 


The  Birth  of  Columbine  3 

off  by  the  other  aunt  to  her  residence  in  Barnsbury,  whence 
in  three  weeks  they  would  be  brought  back  to  home  and  twi- 
light speculations  upon  the  arrival  of  a  little  brother  or  sister. 
In  parenthesis,  he  hoped  it  would  not  be  twins.  They  would 
be  so  difficult  to  explain,  and  the  chaps  in  the  shop  would 
laugh.  The  midwife  came  down  to  boil  some  milk  and  make 
final  arrangements.  The  presence  of  this  ample  lady  dis- 
turbed him.  The  gale  rattling  the  windows  of  the  kitchen 
did  not  provide  any  feeling  of  firelight  snugness,  but  rather 
made  his  thoughts  more  restless,  was  even  so  insistent  as  to 
carry  them  on  its  wings,  weak,  formless  thoughts,  to  the  end 
of  Hagworth  Street,  where  the  bar  of  the  "Masonic  Arms" 
spread  a  wider  and  more  cheerful  illumination  than  was  to  be 
found  in  the  harried  kitchen  of  Number  Seventeen.  So 
Charlie  Raeburn  went  out  to  spend  time  and  money  in  pilot- 
ing several  friends  across  the  shallows  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
mind. 

Upstairs  Mrs.  Raeburn,  left  alone,  again  contemplated  the 
annoying  curtains;  though  by  now  they  were  scarcely  visible 
against  the  gloom  outside.  She  dragged  herself  off  the  bed 
and,  moving  across  to  the  window,  stood  there,  rubbing  the 
muslin  between  her  fingers.  She  remained  for  a  while  thus, 
peering  at  the  backs  of  the  houses  opposite  that,  small  though 
they  really  were,  loomed  with  menace  in  the  lonely  dusk. 
Shadows  of  women  at  work,  always  at  work,  went  to  and  fro 
upon  the  blinds.  They  were  muffled  sounds  of  children  cry- 
ing, the  occasional  splash  of  emptied  pails,  and  against  the 
last  glimmer  of  sunset  the  smoke  of  chimneys  blown  furiously 
outwards.  To  complete  the  air  of  sadness  and  desolation, 
the  faded  leaf  of  a  dried-up  geranium  was  lisping  against  the 
window-pane.  She  gave  up  fingering  the  muslin  curtains  and 
came  back  to  the  middle  of  the  room,  wondering  vaguely 
when  the  next  bout  of  pain  was  due  and  why  the  "woman" 
didn't  come  upstairs  and  make  her  comfortable.  There  were 
matches  on  the  toilet-table;  so  she  lit  a  candle,  whose  light 
gave  every  piece  of   ugly  furniture   a  shadow   and   made  the 


4  Caf^nivai 

room  ghostly  and  unfamiliar.  Presently  she  held  the  light 
beside  her  face  and  stared  at  herself  in  the  glass,  and  thought 
how  pretty  she  still  looked,  and,  flushed  by  the  fever,  how 
young. 

She  experienced  a  sensation  of  fading  personality.  She 
seemed  actually  to  be  losing  herself.  Eyes,  bright  with  ex- 
citement, glittered  back  from  the  mirror,  and  suddenly  there 
came  upon  her  overwhelmingly  the  fear  of  death. 

And  if  she  died,  would  anybody  pity  her,  or  would  she  lie 
forgotten  always  after  the  momentary  tribute  of  white  chry- 
santhemums? Death,  death,  she  found  herself  saying  over  to 
the  tune  of  a  clock  ticking  in  the  passage.  But  she  had  no 
desire  to  die.  Christmas  was  near,  with  its  shoplit  excursions 
and  mistletoe  and  merriment.  Why  should  she  die?  No,  she 
would  fight  hard.  A  girl  or  a  boy?  What  did  it  matter? 
Nothing  mattered.  Perhaps  a  girl  would  be  nicer,  and  she 
should  be  called  Rose.  And  yet,  on  second  thoughts,  when 
you  came  to  think  of  it,  Rose  was  a  cold  sort  of  a  name,  and 
Rosie  was  common.  Why  not  call  her  Jenny?  That  was 
better — with,  perhaps,  Pearl  or  Ruby  to  follow,  when  its 
extravagance  would  pass  unnoticed.  A  girl  should  always 
have  two  names.  But  Jenny  was  the  sweeter.  Nevertheless, 
it  would  be  as  well  to  support  so  homely  a  name  with  a  really 
lady-like  one — something  out  of  the  ordinary. 

Why  had  she  married  Charlie?  All  her  relatives  said  she 
had  married  beneath  her.  Father  had  been  a  butcher — a 
prosperous  man — and  even  he,  in  the  family  tradition,  had 
not  been  considered  good  enough  for  her  mother,  who  was  a 
chemist's  daughter.  Yet,  she,  Florence  Unwin,  had  married 
a  joiner.  WTiy  had  she  married  Charlie?  Looking  back 
over  the  seven  years  of  their  married  life,  she  could  not  remem- 
ber a  time  when  she  had  loved  him  as  she  had  dreamed  of 
love  in  the  airy  room  over  the  busy  shop,  as  she  had  dreamed 
of  love  staring  through  the  sunny  window  away  beyond  the 
Angel,  beyond  the  great  London  skies.  Charlie  was  so  stupid, 
so  dull ;  moreover,  though  not  a  drunkard,  he  was  fond  of 


The  Birth  of  Columbine  5 

half-pints  and  smelt  of  sawdust  and  furniture  polish.  Her 
sisters  never  liked,  never  would  like  him.  She  had  smirched 
the  great  tradition  of  respectability.  What  would  her  grand- 
father, the  chemist,  have  said,  that  dignified  old  man  in  brown 
velvet  coat,  treated  always  with  deference,  even  by  her  father, 
the  jolly,  handsome  butcher?  Florence  Unwin  married  to  a 
joiner — a  man  unable  to  afford  to  keep  his  house  free  from 
the  inevitable  lodger  who  owned  the  best  bedroom — the  bed- 
room that  by  right  should  have  been  hers.  She  had  disgraced 
the  family  and  for  no  high  motive  of  passion — and  once  she 
was  young  and  pretty.  And  still  young,  after  all,  and  still 
pretty.  She  was  only  thirty-three  now.  Why  had  she  mar- 
ried at  all  ?  But  then  her  sisters  did  give  themselves  airs,  and 
the  jolly,  handsome  butcher  had  enjoyed  too  well  and  too 
often  those  drives  to  Jack  Straw's  Castle  on  fine  Sunday  after- 
noons under  the  rolling  Hampstead  clouds,  had  left  little 
enough  when  he  died,  and  Charlie  came  along,  and  perhaps 
even  marriage  with  him  had  been  less  intolerable  than  exist- 
ence among  the  frozen  sitting-rooms  of  her  two  sisters,  drapers' 
wives  though  they  both  were. 

And  the  aunts,  those  three  severe  women?  She  might, 
perhaps,  have  lived  with  them  when  the  jolly,  handsome 
butcher  died,  with  them  in  their  house  at  Clapton,  with  them 
eternally  dusting  innumerable  china  ornaments  and  correcting 
elusive  mats.  The  invitation  had  been  extended,  but  was 
forbidding  as  a  mourning-card  or  the  melancholy  visit  of  an 
insurance  agent  with  his  gossip  of  death.  Death?  Was  she 
going  to  die? 

It  did  not  matter.  The  pain  was  growing  more  acute.  She 
dragged  herself  to  the  door  and  called  down  to  the  midwife; 
called  two  or  three  times. 

There  was  no  answer  except  from  the  clock,  with  its  whis- 
per of  Death  and  Death.  Where  was  the  woman?  Where 
was  Charlie?  She  called  again.  Then  she  remembered, 
through  what  seemed  years  of  grinding  agony,  that  the  street 
door  was  slammed  some  time  ago.     Charlie  must  have  gone 


6  Carnival 

out.  With  the  woman?  Had  he  run  away  with  her?  Was 
she,  the  wife,  forever  abandoned  ?  Was  there  no  life  in 
all  the  world  to  reach  her  solitude?  The  house  was  fearfully, 
unnaturally  silent.  She  reached  up  to  the  cold  gas  bracket, 
and  the  light  flared  up  without  adding  a  ray  of  cheerfulness 
to  the  creaking  passage.  Higher  still  she  turned  it,  until  it 
sang  towards  the  ceiling,  a  thin  geyser  of  flame.  The  chequers 
upon  the  oil-cloth  became  blurred,  as  tears  of  self-pity  welled 
up  in  her  eyes.     She  was  deserted,  and  in  pain. 

Her  mind  sailed  ofif  along  morbid  channels  to  the  grim 
populations  of  hysteria.  She  experienced  the  merely  nervous 
sensation  of  many  black  beetles  running  at  liberty  around  the 
empty  kitchen.  It  was  a  visualization  of  tingling  nerves,  and, 
fostered  by  the  weakening  influence  of  labor  pains,  it  extended 
beyond  the  mere  thought  to  the  endowment  of  a  mental  pic- 
ture with  powerful  and  malign  purpose,  so  that,  after  a  mo- 
ment or  two,  she  came  to  Imagining  that  between  her  and 
the  world  outside  black  beetles  were  creating  an  impassable 
barrier. 

Could  Charlie  and  the  woman  really  have  run  away?  She 
called  again  and  peered  over  the  flimsy  balustrade  down  to 
the  ground  floor.  Or  was  the  woman  lying  In  the  kitchen 
drunk?  Lying  there,  incapable  of  action,  among  the  black 
beetles?     She  called  again: 

"Mrs.  Nightman!     Mrs.  Nightman!" 

How  dry  her  hands  were,  how  parched  her  tongue;  and  her 
eyes,  how  they  burned. 

Was  she  actually  dying?  Was  this  engulfing  silence  the 
beginning  of  death?     What  was  death? 

And  what  was  that?  What  were  those  three  tall,  black 
figures,  moving  along  the  narrow  passage  downstairs?  What 
were  they,  so  solemn  and  tall  and  silent,  moving  with  inexor- 
able steps,  higher  and  higher? 

"Mrs.  Nightman,  Mrs.  Nightman!"  she  shrieked,  and 
stumbled  in  agony  of  body  and  horror  of  mind  back  to  the 
flickering  bedroom,  back  to  the  bed. 


The  Birth  of  Columbine  7 

And  then  there  was  light  and  a  murmur  of  voices,  saying: 
"We  have  come  to  see  how  you  are  feeling,  Florence,"  and 
sitting  by  her  bed  she  recognized  the  three  aunts  from  Clap- 
ton, in  their  bugles  and  cameos  and  glittering  bonnets. 

There  was  a  man,  too,  whom  she  had  only  just  time  to 
realize  was  the  doctor,  not  the  undertaker,  before  she  was 
aware  that  the  final  effort  of  her  tortured  body  was  being 
made  without  assistance  from  her  own  will  or  courage. 

She  waved  away  the  sympathizers.  She  was  glad  to  see 
the  doctor  and  Mrs.  Nightman  herding  them  from  the  room, 
like  gaunt,  black  sheep;  but  they  came  back  again  as  inquisi- 
tive animals  will  when,  after  what  seemed  a  thousand  thou- 
sand years  of  pain,  she  could  hear  something  crying  and  the 
trickle  of  water  and  the  singing  of  a  kettle. 

Perhaps  it  was  Aunt  Fanny  who  said:     "It's  a  dear  little 

girl." 

The  doctor  nodded,  and  Mrs.  Raeburn  stirred,  and  with 
wide  eyes  gazed  at  her  baby. 

"It  is  Jenny,  after  all,"  she  murmured ;  then  wished  for 
the  warmth  of  a  new-born  child  against  her  breast. 


Chapter  II:  Fairies  at  the  Christening 

A  FORTNIGHT  after  the  birth  of  Jenny,  her  three 
great-aunts,  black  and  stately  as  ever,  paid  a  second 
visit  to  the  mother. 

"And  how   is  Florrie?"   inquired  Aunt  Alice. 

"Going  on  fine,"  said   Florrie. 

"And  what  is  the  baby  to  be  called?"  asked  Aunt  Fanny. 

"Jenny,  and  perhaps  Pearl  as  well." 

"Jenny?" 

"Pearl?" 

"Jenny  Pearl?" 

The  three  aunts  disapproved  the  choice  with  combined  in- 
terrogation. 

"We  were  thinking,"  announced  Aunt  Alice;  "your  aunts 
were  thinking,  Florrie,  that  since  we  have  a  good  deal  of 
room  at  Carminia  House " 

"It  would  be  a  capital  plan  for  the  baby  to  live  with  us," 
went  on  Aunt  Mary. 

"For  since  our  father  died"  (old  Frederick  Horner,  the 
chemist,  had  been  under  a  laudatory  stone  slab  at  Kensal  Green 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century),  "there  has  been  room  and  to 
spare  at  Carminia  House,"  said  Aunt  Fanny. 

"The  baby  would  be  well  brought  up,"  Aunt  Alice  de- 
clared. 

"Very  well  brought  up,  and  sent  to  a  genteel  academy  for 
young — ladies."  The  break  before  the  last  word  was  due  to 
Miss  Horner's  momentary  but  distinctly  perceptible  criticism 
of  the  unladylike  bedroom,  where  her  niece  lay  suckling  her 
baby  girl. 

8 


Fairies  at  the  Christening  9 

"We  should  not  want  her  at  once,  of  course,"  Aunt  Fanny 
explained.  "We  should  not  expect  to  be  able  to  look  after 
her  properly — though  I  believe  there  are  now  many  infant 
foods  very  highly  recommended  even  by  doctors." 

Perhaps  it  was  the  pride  of  chemical  ancestry  that  sus- 
tained Miss  Frances  Horner  through  the  indelicacy  of  the 
last  announcement.  But  old  maids'  flesh  was  weak,  and  the 
carmine  suffusing  her  waxen  cheeks  drove  the  eldest  sister  into 
an  attempt  to  cover  her  confusion  by  adding  that  she,  for 
one,  was  glad  in  these  days  of  neglected  duties  to  see  a  mother 
nursing  her  own  child. 

"We  feel,"  she  went  on,  "  that  the  arrival  of  a  little  girl 
shows  very  clearly  that  the  Almighty  intended  us  to  adopt  her. 
Had  it — had  she  proved  to  be  a  boy,  we  should  have  made  no 
suggestions  about  her,  except,  perhaps,  that  her  name  should 
be  Frederick  after  our  father,  the  chemist." 

"With  possibly  Philip  as  a  second  name,"  Miss  Mary 
Horner  put  in. 

"Philip?"  her  sisters  asked. 

And  now  Miss  Mary  blushed,  whethe.  on  account  of  a 
breach  of  sisterly  etiquette,  or  whether  for  some  guilty  mem- 
ory of  a  long-withered  afFection,  was  never  discovered  by  her 
elders  or  any  one  else,  either. 

"Philip?"  her  sisters  repeated. 

"It  is  a  very  respectable  name,"  said  Miss  Mary  apologetic- 
ally, and  for  the  life  of  her  could  only  recall  Philip  of  Spain, 
whose  admirable  qualities  were  not  enough  marked  to  justify 
her  in  breaking  in  upon  Miss  Horner's  continuation  of  the 
discussion. 

"Feeling  as  we  do,"  the  latter  said,  "that  a  divine  provi- 
dence has  given  a  girl-child  to  the  world  on  account  of  our 
earnest  prayers,  we  think  we  have  a  certain  right  to  give  our 
advice,  to  urge  that  you,  my  dear  Florence,  should  allow  us 
the  opportunity  of  regulating  her  education  and  securing  her 
future.  We  enjoy  between  us  a  comfortable  little  sum  of 
money,  half  of  which  we  propose  to  set  aside  for  the  child. 


I  o  Carnival 

The  rest  has  already  been  promised  to  the  Reverend  Williams, 
to  be  applied  as  he  shall  think  fit." 

"Like  an  ointment,  I  suppose,"  said  Florrie. 

"Like  an  ointment?     Like  what  ointment?" 

"You  seem  to  think  that  money  will  cure  everything — if 
it's  applied.  But  who's  going  to  look  after  Jenny  if  you  die? 
Because,"  she  went  on,  before  they  had  time  to  answer, 
"Jenny  isn't  going  to  be  applied  to  the  Reverend  Williams. 
She  isn't  going  to  mope  all  day  with  Bibles  as  big  as  tramcars 
on  her  knees.  No,  thank  you,  Aunt  Alice,  Jenny'll  stay  with 
her  mother." 

"Then  you  won't  allow  us  to  adopt  her?"  snapped  Miss 
Horner,  sitting  up  so  straight  in  the  cane-bottomed  chair  that 
it  creaked  again  and  again. 

"I  don't  think,"  Aunt  Fanny  put  in,  "that  you  are  quite 
old  enough  to  understand  the  temptations  of  a  young  girl." 

"Aren't  I?"  said  Florence.  "I  think  I  know  a  sight  more 
about  'em  than  you  do,  Aunt  Fanny.  I  am  a  mother,  when 
all's  said  and  done." 

"But  have  you  got  salvation?"  asked  Miss  Horner. 

"I  don't  see  what  salvation  and  that  all's  got  to  do  with 
my  Jenny,"  Mrs.  Raeburn  argued. 

"But  you  would  like  her  to  be  sure  of  everlasting  happi- 
ness?" inquired  Miss  Fanny  mildly,  amazed  at  her  niece's 
obstinacy. 

"I'd  like  her  to  be  a  good  girl,  yes." 

"But  how  can  she  be  good  till  she  has  found  the  Lord? 
We're  none  of  us  good,"  declared  Miss  Mary,  "till  we  have 
been  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb." 

"I  quite  believe  you're  in  earnest,  Aunt  Alice,"  declared 
Mrs.  Raeburn,  "in  earnest,  and  anxious  to  do  well  by  Jenny, 
but  I  don't  hold  and  never  did  hold  with  cooping  children 
up.     Poor  little  things!" 

"There  wouldn't  be  any  cooping  up.  As  a  child  of  grace, 
she  would  often  go  out  walking  with  her  aunts,  and  some- 
times, perhaps  often,  be  allowed  to  carry  the  tracts." 


Fairies  at  the  Christening  i  i 

Mrs.    Raeburn    looked    down    in    the    round    blue    eyes   of 
Jenny. 

"Perhaps  you'd  like  her  to  jump  to  glory  with  a  tambour- 
ine?" she  said. 

"Jump  to  glory  with  a  tambourine?"  echoed  Miss  Horner. 

"Or  bang  the  ears  off  of  Satan  with  a  blaring  drum?     Or 
go  squalling  up  aloft  with  them  saucy  salvation  hussies?" 

The  austere  old  ladies  were  deeply  shocked  by  the  levity  of 
their  niece's  inquiries. 

Sincerely  happy,  sincerely  good,  they  were  unable  to  under- 
stand any  one  not  burning  to  feel  at  home  in  the  white- 
washed chapel  which  to  them  was  an  abode  of  murmurous 
peace.  They  wanted  everybody  to  recognize  with  glad  famil- 
iarity every  text  that  decorated  the  bleak  walls  with  an  assur- 
ance of  heavenly  joys.  Their  quiet  encounters  with  spiritual 
facts  had  nothing  in  common  with  those  misguided  folk  who 
were  escorted  by  brass  bands  along  the  shining  road  to  God. 
They  were  happy  in  the  exclusiveness  of  their  religion,  not 
from  any  conscious  want  of  charity,  but  from  the  exaltation 
aroused  by  the  privilege  of  divine  intimacy  and  the  joyful 
sense  of  being  favorites  in  heavenly  places.  The  Rev.  Josiah 
Williams,  for  all  his  liver-colored  complexion  and  clayey  nose, 
was  to  them  a  celestial  ambassador.  His  profuse  outpourings 
of  prayer  took  them  higher  than  any  skylark  with  its  quiver- 
ing wings.  His  turgid  discourses,  where  every  metaphor 
seemed  to  have  escaped  from  a  store's  price-list,  were  to  them 
more  fruitful  of  imaginative  results  than  any  poet's  song.  His 
grave  visits,  when  he  seemed  always  to  be  either  washing  his 
hands  or  wiping  his  boots,  left  in  the  hearts  of  the  three  old 
maids  memories  more  roseate  than  any  sunset  of  the  Apen- 
nines. Therefore,  when  Mrs.  Raeburn  demanded  to  know  if 
they  were  anxious  for  Jenny  to  jump  to  glory  with  a  tam- 
bourine, the  religious  economy  of  the  three  Miss  Horners 
was  upset.  On  consideration,  even  jumping  to  glory  without 
a  tambourine  struck  them  as  an  indelicate  method  of  reach- 
ing Paradise. 
2 


1 2  Carnival 

"And  wherever  did  jou  get  the  notion  of  adopting  Jenny?" 
continued  the  niece.  "For  I'm  sure  I  never  suggested  any 
such  thing." 

"We  got  the  notion  from  above,  Florence,"  explained  Miss 
Fanny.  "It  was  a  direct  command  from  our  Heavenly  Father. 
I  had  a  vision." 

"Your  Aunt  Fanny,"  proclaimed  the  elder  sister,  "dreamed 
she  was  nursing  a  white  rabbit.  Now,  we  have  not  eaten 
rabbits  since,  on  an  occasion  when  the  Reverend  Williams 
was  taking  a  little  supper  with  us,  we  unfortunately  had  a 
bad  one — a  high  one.  There  had  been  nothing  to  suggest 
rabbits,  let  alone  white  rabbits,  to  your  Aunt  Fanny.  So  I 
said:  'Florence  is  going  to  have  a  baby.  It  must  be  a  warn- 
ing.' We  consulted  the  Reverend  Williams,  who  said  it  was 
very  remarkable,  and  must  mean  the  Almighty  was  calling 
upon  us  as  he  called  upon  the  infant  Samuel.  We  inquired 
first  if  either  of  your  sisters  was  going  to  have  a  baby,  also. 
Caroline  Threadgale  wrote  an  extremely  rude  letter,  and 
Mabel  Purkiss  was  even  ruder.  So,  evidently,  it  is  the  will  of 
God  that  we  should  adopt  your  baby  girl.  We  prayed  to  Him 
to  make  it  a  little  girl,  because  we  are  more  familiar  with 
little  girls,  never  having  had  a  brother  and  our  father  having 
died  a  good  w^hile  ago  now.  Well,  it  is  a  girl.  So  plainly 
— oh,  my  dear  niece,  can't  you  see  how  plainly — God  com- 
mands you  to  obey  Him?" 

Then  Miss  Horner  stood  up  and  looked  so  tall  and  severe 
that  her  niece  was  frightened  for  a  moment,  and  half  expected 
to  see  the  flutter  of  an  angel's  wing  over  the  foot  of  the  bed- 
stead. She  nerved  herself,  however,  to  resist  the  will  of 
Heaven. 

"Dreaming  of  rabbits  hasn't  got  nothing  to  do  with  babies. 
I  forget  what  it  does  mean — burglars,  or  something,  but  not 
babies,  and  you  sha'n't  have  Jenny." 

"Think,  my  dear  niece,  before  you  refuse,"  Miss  Horner 
remonstrated.  "Think  before  you  condemn  your  child  to  ever- 
lasting  damnation,    for    nothing   but   the   gates   of    Hell   can 


Fairies  at  the  Christening  i  3 

come  from  denj  ing  the  Heavenly  Will.  Think  of  jour  child 
growing  up  in  wickedness  and  idle  places,  growing  old  in 
ignorance  and  contempt  of  God.  Think  of  her  dancing  along 
the  broad  ways  of  Beelzebub,  eating  of  the  fruit  of  the  for- 
bidden tree,  kissing  and  waltzing  and  making  love  and  theater- 
going and  riding  outside  omnibuses.  Think  of  her  journeying 
from  vanity  unto  vanity  and  becoming  a  prey  to  evil  and 
lascivious  men.  Remember  the  wily  serpent  who  is  waiting 
for  her.  Gi\e  her  to  us,  that  she  may  be  washed  in  the  blood 
of  the  Lamb,  and  crying  Hallelujah,  may  have  a  harp  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

"If  you  reject  us,"  the  old  lady  went  on,  her  marble  face 
taking  on  the  lively  hues  of  passion,  her  eyes  on  fire  with  the 
greatness  of  her  message,  "you  reject  God.  Your  daughter 
will  go  by  ways  you  know  not  of;  she  will  be  lost  in  the 
mazes  of  destruction,  she  will  fall  in  the  pit  of  sin.  She 
will  be  trampled  under  foot  on  the  Day  of  Judgment,  and 
be  flung  forever  into  wailing  and  gnashing  of  teeth.  Her 
going  out  and  coming  in  will  be  perilous.  Her  path  will  be 
set  with  snares  of  the  giant  of  Iniquity.  Listen  to  us,  my 
dear  niece,  lest  your  child  become  a  daughter  of  pleasure,  a 
perpetual  desire  to  the  evil-minded.  Give  her  us  that  we  may 
keep  her  where  neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt,  and  no 
thieves  break  in  and  steal." 

The  old  lady,  exhausted  by  the  force  of  her  prophecy,  sank 
down  into  the  chair,  and,  elated  by  the  splendors  of  the  divine 
wrath,  seemed  indeed  to  be  a  noble  and  fervid  messenger  from 
God. 

In  Mrs.  Raeburn,  however,  these  denunciations  wakened  a 
feeling  of  resentment. 

"Here,"  she  cried,  "are  you  cursing  my  Jenny?"  ■ 

"We  are  warning  you." 

"Well,  don't  sit  nodding  there  like  three  crows;  your  curs- 
ing will  come  to  nothing,  because  you  don't  know  nothing 
about  London,  nor  about  life,  nor  about  nothing.  What's 
the  good  of  joring  about  the  way  to  Heaven,  when  you  don't 


1 4  Carnival 

know  the  way  to  Liverpool  Street  without  asking  a  police- 
man? I  say  Jenny  shall  be  happy.  I  say  she  shall  be  jolly  and 
merry  and  laugh  when  she's  a  mind  to,  bless  her,  and  never 
come  to  no  harm  with  her  mother  to  look  after  her.  She 
sha'n't  be  a  Plain  Jane  and  No  Nonsense,  with  her  hair 
screwed  back  like  a  broom,  but  she  shall  be  Jenny,  sweet  and 
handsome,  with  lips  made  for  kissing  and  eyes  that  will 
sparkle  and  shine  like  six  o'clock  of  a  summer  morning." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  holding  high  the  un- 
conscious infant. 

"And  she  shall  be  happy,  d'ye  hear?  And  you  sha'n't 
have  her,  so  get  out,  and  don't  wag  your  bonnets  at  my 
Jenny." 

The  three  aunts  looked  at  each  other. 

"I  see  the  footprints  of  Satan  in  this  room,"  said  Miss 
Horner. 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  contradicted  her  niece.  "It's  your  o\vii 
muddy  feet." 

Outside,  a  German  band,  seduced  from  hibernation  by  St. 
Luke's  summer,  played  the  "March  of  the  Priests"  from  "Ath- 
alie,"  leaving  out  the  more  important  notes,  and  soon  a  jaded 
omnibus,  with  the  nodding  bonnets  of  the  three  Miss  Hor- 
ners,  jogged  slowly  back  to  Clapton. 

When  the  Miss  Horners  withdrew  from  the  dingy  bedroom 
the  swish  and  rustle  of  their  occupation,  Mrs.  Raeburn  was 
at  first  relieved,  afterwards  indignant,  finally  anxious. 

Could  this  strawberry-colored  piece  of  womanhood  beside 
her  really  be  liable  to  such  a  life  of  danger  and  temptation 
and  destruction?  Could  this  wide-eyed  stolidity  ever  become 
a  spark  to  set  men's  hearts  afire?  Would  those  soft,  uncrum- 
pling  hands  know  some  day  love's  fever?  No,  no,  her  Jenny 
should  be  a  home-bird — always  a  home-bird,  and  marry  some 
nice  young  chap  who  could  afford  to  give  her  a  comfortable 
house  where  she  could  smile  at  children  of  her  own,  when 
the  three  old  aunts  had  moldered  away  like  dry  sticks  of 
lavender.     All  that  babble  of    flames  and  hell   was  due  to 


Fairies  at  the  Christe7iing  i  5 

religion  gone  mad,  to  extravagant  perusal  of  brass-bound 
Bibles,  to  sour  virginity.  With  some  perception  of  human 
weakness,  Mrs.  Raeburn  began  to  realize  that  her  aunts' 
heads  were  full  of  heated  imaginations  because  they  had  never 
possessed  an  outlet  in  youth.  The  fierce  adventures  of  pas- 
sion had  been  withheld  from  them,  and  now,  in  old  age,  they 
were  playing  with  fires  that  should  have  been  extinguished 
long  ago.  Fancy  living  with  those  terrible  old  women  at 
Clapton,  hearing  nothing  but  whispers  of  hell-fire.  All  that 
talk  of  looking  after  Jenny's  soul  was  just  telling  the  tale. 
There  must  be  some  scheme  behind  it  all.  Perhaps  they 
wanted  to  save  money  in  a  servant,  and  thought  to  bring  on 
Jenny  by  degrees  to  a  condition  of  undignified  utility. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  was  by  no  means  a  harsh  judge  of  human 
nature,  but  her  aunts  having  arrived  at  an  unpropitious  mo- 
ment, she  could  not  see  their  offer  from  a  reasonable  stand- 
point. Moreover,  she  had  the  proud  woman's  invariable 
suspicion  of  a  gift ;  withal,  there  was  a  certain  cynicism  which 
made  her  say  "presents  weren't  given  for  nothing  in  this 
world."  Anyway,  she  decided,  they  were  gone,  and  a  good 
riddance,  and  she  wouldn't  ask  them  to  Hagworth  Street 
again  in  a  hurry.  The  problem  of  getting  in  a  woman  to  help 
now  arose.  Mrs.  Nightman  was  off  to-morrow;  Alf  and  Ede 
would  be  back  in  a  week,  and  Charlie's  breakfast  must  be 
attended  to.  Mrs.  Nightman  informed  her  she  knew  where 
a  likely  girl  of  fifteen  was  to  be  found — a  child  warranted  to 
be  willing  and  clean  and  truthful.  To-morrow,  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn settled,  this  paragon  must  be  interviewed. 

To-morrow  dawned,  and  in  the  wake  of  sunrise  came  the 
paragon.  She  still  wore  the  dresses  of  childhood,  but  paid 
toll  to  responsibleness  by  screwing  up  her  mouse-colored  hair 
to  the  likeness  of  a  cockle-shell,  adding  thereby,  in  her  mother's 
estimation,  eighteen  months,  in  her  own,  ten  years,  to  her 
age.  She  was  a  plum-faced  child,  with  glazed  cheeks.  Her 
nose,  Mrs.  Raeburn  observed  with  pleasure,  did  not  drip  like 
palings  on   a  wet   day.     The  paragon   was  just  an  ordinary 


1 6  Carnival 

old  little  girl,  pitched  into  life  with  a  pair  of  ill-fitting  boots, 
a  pinafore,  and  half  a  dozen  hairpins.  But  she  would  do. 
Wait  a  minute.  Was  she  inclined  to  loll  or  mouch?  No. 
Was  she  bound  to  tilt  a  perambulator?  No.  Must  she  read 
light  fiction  when  crossing  a  road?     She  didn't  like  reading. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  decided  more  than  ever  that  she  would  do. 

Was  she  good  at  washing  unwilling  children?  She  washed 
many  brothers  and  sisters  with  yellow  soap  and  dried  them 
thoroughly  every  Saturday  night.  Did  she  want  the  place? 
Mother  would  be  glad  if  she  got  it.  What  was  her  name? 
Ruby.  Mrs.  Raeburn  thanked  goodness  she  had  abandoned 
Ruby  as  a  possible  suffix  to  Jenny.  Her  surname?  O'Connor. 
Irish?     She  didn't  know.    Yes,  she  should  have  a  week's  trial. 

So  the  paragon  became  a  part  of  the  household  as  integral 
as  the  furniture  and  almost  as  ugly,  and,  as  she  grew  older, 
almost  as  unnecessarily  decorated.  Alfie,  the  young  Tartar, 
tried  to  break  her  in  by  severe  usage,  but  succumbed  to  the 
paragon's  complete  imperviousness.  Edie  was  too  young  to 
regard  her  as  anything  but  an  audience  for  long  and  baseless 
fits  of  weeping. 

The  two  children  were  brought  back  by  Aunt  Mabel  from 
her  house  at  Barnsbury,  where  they  had  sojourned  during 
the  birth  of  their  sister. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  was  softer  and  plumper  and  shorter  than 
her  sister.  She  had  a  rosy  complexion,  and  eyes  as  bright  as 
a  bird's.  She  had,  too,  the  merriest  laugh  in  the  world  till 
Jenny  grew  older  and  made  it  sound  almost  mirthless  beside 
her  own.  It  was  this  capacity  for  laughter  which  made  her 
resent  the  aunts'  attempt  to  capture  Jenny  for  melanchoh-. 

Although,  before  the  child's  birth,  she  had  not  been  particu- 
larly enthusiastic  about  its  arrival,  the  baby  already  possessed 
a  personality  so  compelling  that  the  mother  esteemed  her 
above  both  the  elder  children,  not  because  she  was  the  last 
born,  but  because  she  genuinely  felt  the  world  was  the  richer 
by  her  baby.  If  she  had  been  asked  to  express  this  conviction 
in   words,  she  would  have  been  at  a  loss.     She  would  have 


Fairies  at  the  Christening  i  7 

been  embarrassed  and  self-conscious,  sure  that  you  were  laugh- 
ing at  her.  She  did  venture  once  to  ask  Mabel  if  she  thought 
Jenny  prettier  than  the  other  two;  but  Mabel  laughed  indul- 
gently, and  Mrs.  Raeburn  could  not  bring  herself  to  enlarge 
upon  the  point. 

She  wished  somehow  that  her  mother  could  have  lived  to 
see  Jenny,  and  her  father,  too.  Of  this  desire  she  was  not 
aware  when  Alfie  and  Edie  arrived.  She  felt  positive  her 
father  would  have  considered  Jenny  full  of  life.  Paradoxically 
enough  for  a  butcher,  Mr.  Unwin  had  admired  life  more 
than  anything  else.  Perhaps  Mrs.  Raeburn  experienced  an 
elation  akin  to  that  felt  of  old  by  wayside  nymphs  who  bore 
children  to  Apollo  and  other  divine  philanderers.  She  knew 
that,  however  uneventful  the  rest  of  her  life  might  be,  in  achiev- 
ing Jenny  she  had  done  something  comparable  to  her  dreams 
as  a  girl  in  the  sunny  Islington  window  that  looked  away 
down  to  the  Angel.  She  could  not  help  feeling  a  subtle  pity 
for  her  elder  sister,  whose  first-born  was  due  in  May.  Boy 
or  girl,  it  would  be  a  putty  statuette  beside  her  Jenny.  The 
latter  was  alive.  How  amazingly  she  was  conscious  of  that 
vitality  in  the  darkness,  when  she  felt  the  baby  against  her 
breast. 

Her  own  eyes  were  bright,  but  Jenny's  eyes  were  stars  that 
made  her  own  look  like  pennies  beside  them.  Such  fancies 
she  found  herself  weaving,  lying  awake  in  the  night-time. 


Chapter  III :  Dawn  Shadows 

JENNY  reached  the  age  of  two  years  and  a  few  months 
without  surprising  her  relatives  by  any  prodigious  feats 
of  intelligence  or  wickedness.  But  in  Hagworth  Street 
there  was  not  much  leisure  to  regard  the  progress  of  baby- 
hood. There  was  no  time  for  more  than  physical  comparisons 
with  other  children.  It  would  be  pleasant  to  pretend  that 
Jenny  gazed  at  the  stars,  clapping  a  welcome  to  Cassiopea  and 
singing  to  the  Pleiades;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  not 
very  easy  to  regard  the  heavens  from  the  kitchen  window  of 
Number  Seventeen.  I  should  be  happy  to  say  that  flowers 
were  a  joy  to  her  from  the  beginning,  but  very  few  flowers 
came  to  Hagworth  Street — groundsel  for  the  canary  some- 
times, and  plantains,  but  not  much  else.  The  main  interest 
of  Jenny's  earliest  days  lay  rather  with  her  mother  than 
herself. 

The  visit  of  the  three  old  aunts  roused  Mrs.  Raeburn  to 
express  her  imagination  at  first,  but  gradually  assumed  a  com- 
monplace character  as  the  months  rolled  by  without  anothei 
visit  and  as  Jenny,  with  a  chair  pushed  before  her,  learned  to 
walk  rather  earlier  than  most  children,  but  showed  no  othei 
sign  of  suffering  or  benefiting  by  that  grim  intervention 
Perhaps,  when  she  pushed  her  wooden  guide  so  quickly  alon^' 
the  landing  that  chair  and  child  bumped  together  down  everj 
stair,  her  mother  was  inclined  to  think  she  was  lucky  not  to 
be  killed.  Anyway,  she  said  so  to  the  child,  who  was  shriek- 
ing on  the  mat  in  the  hall;  and  in  after  years  Jenny  could 

i8 


Dawn  Shadows  i  9 

remember  the  painful  incident.  Indeed,  that  and  a  backward 
splash  into  the  washtub  on  the  first  occasion  of  wearing  a 
frock  of  damson  velveteen,  were  the  only  events  of  her  earliest 
life  that  impressed  themselves  at  all  sharply  or  completely 
upon  her  mind.  Through  time's  distorted  haze  she  could  also 
vaguely  recall  an  adventure  with  treacle  when,  egged  on  by 
Alfie,  she  had  explored  the  darkness  of  an  inset  cupboard 
and  wedged  the  stolen  tin  of  golden  syrup  so  tightly  round 
her  silvery  curls  that  Alfie  had  shouted  for  help.  The  sensa- 
tion of  the  sticky  substance  trickling  down  her  face  in  numer- 
ous thin  streams  remained  with  her  always. 

People  were  only  realized  in  portions.  For  example,  Ruby 
O'Connor  existed  as  a  rough,  red  hand,  descending  upon  her 
suddenly  in  the  midst  of  baby  enjoyments.  Alfie  and  Edie 
were  two  noises,  acquiring  with  greater  nearness  the  character 
of  predatory  birds.  That  is  to  say,  in  Jenny's  mind  the  inti- 
mate approach  of  either  always  announced  loss  or  interruption 
of  a  pleasure.  Her  father  she  first  apprehended  as  a  pair  of 
legs  forming  a  gigantic  archway,  vast  as  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes  must  have  loomed  to  the  triremes  of  the  Confederacy. 
Better  than  kisses  or  admonitions,  she  remembered  her 
mother's  skirt,  whether  as  support  or  sanctuary.  The  rest  of 
mankind  she  did  not  at  all  distinguish  from  trees  walking. 
She  was  better  able  to  conceive  a  smile  than  a  face,  but  the 
realization  of  either  largely  depended  upon  its  association  with 
the  handkerchief  of  "peep-bo." 

Seventeen  Hagworth  Street  was  familiar,  first  of  all, 
ihrough  the  step  of  the  front  door,  which  she  invariably  was 
commanded  to  beware.  She  did  not  grasp  its  propinquit}'  from 
the  perambulator,  for,  when  lifted  out  of  the  latter  and  told 
to  run  in  to  mother,  it  was  only  the  step  which  assured  her  of 
the  vast  shadowy  place  of  warmth  and  familiar  smells  in 
which  she  spent  most  of  her  existence.  Of  the  smells,  the 
best  remembered  in  after-life  was  that  of  warm  blankets 
before  the  kitchen  fire.  Her  only  approach  to  an  idea  of 
property  rested  in  the  security  of  a  slice  of  bread  and  butter, 


2  o  Carnival 

which  could  be  devoured  slowly  without  wakening  Alfie's 
cupidity.  On  the  other  hand,  when  jam  was  added,  the  slice 
must  be  gobbled,  not  from  greediness,  but  for  fear  of  losing  it. 
This  applied  also  to  the  incidental  booty  of  stray  chocolates 
or  paints.  Her  notion  of  territory  was  confined  to  places 
where  she  could  sit  or  lie  at  ease.  The  patchwork  hearthrug, 
which  provided  warmth,  softness,  something  to  tug  at,  and, 
sometimes,  pieces  of  coal  to  chew,  was  probably  her  earliest 
conception  of  home,  and  perhaps  her  first  disillusionment  was 
due  to  a  volatile  spark  burning  her  cheek.  Bed  struck  her 
less  as  a  prelude  to  the  oblivion  of  sleep  than  as  a  spot  where 
she  was  not  worried  about  sucking  her  thumb.  Perhaps  her 
first  emotion  of  mere  sensuousness  was  the  delicious  anticipa- 
tion of  thumb-sucking  as  Ruby  O'Connor  propelled  her  up- 
stairs with  the  knee,  a  sensuousness  that  was  only  very  slightly 
ruffled  by  the  thought  of  soap  and  flannelette.  Suspicion  was 
born  when  once  she  was  given  a  spoonful  of  jam,  whose  melt- 
ing sweetness  disclosed  a  clammy  sediment  of  gray  powder,  so 
that  ever  afterwards  the  offer  of  a  spoon  meant  kicks  and 
yells,  dribbles  and  clenched  resistance.  Her  first  deception 
lay  in  pretending  to  be  asleep  when  she  was  actually  awake, 
as  animals  counterfeit  death  to  avoid  disturbance.  Whether, 
however,  she  had  any  idea  of  being  what  she  was  not,  is  un- 
likely, as  she  did  not  yet  possess  a  notion  of  being.  Probably 
"peep-bo,"  when  first  practiced  by  herself,  helped  to  formulate 
an  embryonic  egotism. 

The  birth  of  light  on  summer  mornings  kindled  a  sense  of 
wonder  when  she  realized  that  light  did  not  depend  on 
human  agency.  Later  on,  dawn  was  connected  in  her  mind 
with  the  suddenly  jerky  movement  of  the  night-light's  lumi- 
nous reflection  upon  the  ceiling,  at  which  she  would  stare  for 
hours  in  meditative  content.  This  movement  was  always  fol- 
lowed by  the  splutter  and  hiss  of  the  drowning  wick,  and  her 
first  feeling  of  nocturnal  terror  was  experienced  when  once 
these  symptoms  occurred  and  were  followed,  not  by  morning 
light,  but  by  darkness.     Then  she  shrieked,  not  because  she 


Dawn  Shadows  2  i 

feared  anything  in  the  darkness  yet,  but  because  she  could  not 
understand  it. 

The  sensations  of  this  Islington  baby  may  have  resembled 
those  of  a  full-grown  Carib  or  Hottentot  in  their  simple 
acceptance  of  primary  facts,  in  a  desire  for  synthetic  repre- 
sentation which  distinguishes  an  unsophisticated  audience  of 
plays,  in  that  odd  passion  for  accuracy  whose  breach  upsets 
a  habit,  whose  observance  confirms  dogs,  children  and  savages 
in  their  hold  upon  life. 

As  was  natural  for  one  more  usually  occupied  with  effects 
than  causes,  Jenny  took  delight  in  colored  chalks  and  beads, 
and  probably  a  vivid  scarlet  pelisse  first  awoke  her  dormant 
sense  of  beauty.  The  appearance  of  this  vestment  was  more 
important  than  its  purpose,  but  the  tying  on  of  her  "ta-ta" — 
at  first  a  frilled  bonnet,  later  on  a  rakish  Tarn  o'  Shanter — 
was  clapped  as  the  herald  of  drowsy  glidings  in  cool  airs. 
She  would  sit  in  the  perambulator  staring  solemnly  at  Ruby, 
and  only  opening  her  eyes  a  little  wider  when  she  was  bumped 
down  to  take  a  crossing  and  up  to  regain  the  pavement.  Pass- 
ers-by, who  leaned  over  to  admire  her,  gained  no  more  appre- 
ciation than  a  puzzled  blink,  less  than  was  vouchsafed  to  the 
sudden  shadow  of  a  bird's  flight  across  her  vision. 

Then  came  hot  summer  days  and  a  sailor  hat  which  en- 
rolled her  in  the  crew  of  the  H.  M.  S.  Goliath.  This  hat  she 
disliked  on  account  of  the  elastic,  which  Alfie  loved  to  catch 
hold  of  and  let  go  with  a  smacking  sound  that  hurt  her  chin 
dreadfully;  and  sometimes  in  tugging  at  it,  she  would  herseH 
let  it  slip  so  that  it  caught  her  nose  like  a  whip. 

These  slow  promenades  up  and  down  the  shady  side  of 
Hagworth  Street  were  very  pleasant ;  although  the  inevit- 
able buckling  of  the  strap  began  to  impede  her  ideas  of  free- 
dom, so  much  so  in  time  that  it  became  a  duty  to  herself  to 
wriggle  as  much  as  possible  before  she  let  Ruby  fasten  it 
round  her  waist.  Perhaps  the  first  real  struggle  for  self- 
expression  happened  on  a  muddy  day,  when  she  discovered 
that,  by  letting  her  podgy  hand  droop  over  the  edge  of  the 


2  2  Carnival 

perambulator,  the  palm  of  it  could  be  exquisitely  tickled  by 
the  slow  and  moist  revolutions  of  the  wheel.  Ruby  instantly 
forbade  this.  Jenny  declined  to  obey  the  command.  Ruby 
leaned  over  and  slapped  the  offending  hand.  Jenny  shrieked 
and  kicked.  Edie  fell  down  and  became  involved  with  the 
wheels  of  the  perambulator.  Alfle  knelt  by  a  drain  to  pretend 
he  was  fishing.  Jenny  screamed  louder  and  louder.  An 
errand-boy  looked  on.  An  old  lady  rebuked  the  flustered 
Ruby.  The  rabbit-skin  rug  palpitated  with  angry  little  feet. 
Ruby  put  up  the  hood  and  tightened  the  strap  round  Jenny, 
making  her  more  furious  than  ever.  It  came  on  to  rain.  It 
came  on  to  blow.  It  was  altogether  a  thoroughly  unsatisfac- 
tory morning. 

"I'll  learn  you,  Miss  Artful,  when  I  gets  you  home.  You 
will  have  your  own  way,  will  you?  Young  Alfie,  come  out 
of  the  gutter,  you  naughty  boy.  I'll  tell  your  father.  Get 
up,  do,  Edie." 

At  last  they  reached  Number  Seventeen.  Summoned  by 
yells,  Mrs.  Raeburn  came  to  the  door. 

"Whatever  have  you  been  doing  to  the  children,  Ruby?" 

"Lor',  mum,  they've  been  that  naughty,  I  haven't  known 
if  I  was  on  my  head  or  my  heels." 

The  interfering  old  lady  came  up  at  this  moment. 

"That  girl  of  yours  was  beating  your  baby  disgracefully." 

"No,  I  never,"  declared  Ruby. 

"I  shall  report  you  to  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Children." 

"That's  right,  Mother  Longnose,  you'll  do  a  lot,"  said 
Ruby,  whose  Irish  ancestry  was  flooding  her  cheeks. 

"Were  you  whipping  Jenny?"  inquired  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"I  slapped  her  wrist." 

"What  for?" 

"Because  she  wouldn't  keep  her  hands  off  of  the  wheel. 
I  told  her  not  to,  but  she  would  go  on." 

"I  shall  report  you  all,"  announced  the  old  lady. 

This  irritated  Mrs.   Raeburn,  who  replied  that  she  would 


Dawn  Shadows  2  3 

report  the  old  lady  as  a  wandering  lunatic.  Jenny's  right  to 
act  as  she  wished  was  in  the  balance.  The  old  lady,  like 
many  another  before,  ruined  freedom's  cause  by  untimely 
propaganda.  Mrs.  Raeburn  plucked  her  daughter  from  the 
perambulator,  shook  her  severely,  and  said:  "You  bad, 
naughty  girl,"  several  times  in  succession.  Jenny  paused  for 
a  moment  in  surprise,  then  burst  into  yells  louder  by  far  than 
she  had  ever  achieved  before,  and  was  carried  into  the  house 
out  of  reach  of  sympathy. 

From  that  moment  she  was  alert  to  combat  authority. 
From  that  moment  to  the  end  of  her  days,  life  could  offer  her 
nothing  more  hateful  than  attempted  repression.  That  this 
struggle  over  the  wheel  of  a  perambulator  endowed  her  with 
a  consciousness  of  her  own  personality,  it  would  be  hard  to 
assert  positively,  but  it  is  significant  that  about  this  age  (two 
years  and  eight  months)  she  no  longer  always  spoke  of  her- 
self as  Jenny,  but  sometimes  took  the  first  personal  pronoun. 
Also,  about  this  age,  she  began  to  imagine  that  people  were 
laughing  at  her,  and,  being  taken  by  her  mother  into  a  shop 
on  one  occasion,  set  up  a  commotion  of  tears,  because,  she  in- 
sisted, the  ladies  behind  the  counter  were  laughing  at  her, 
when  really  the  poor  ladies  were  trying  to  be  particularly 
pleasant.  When  Jenny  was  three,  another  baby  came  to 
Hagworth  Street — dark-eyed,  puny,  and  wan-looking.  Jenny 
was  put  on  the  bed  beside  her. 

"This  is  May,"  said  her  mother. 

"I  love  May,"  said  Jenny. 

"Very  much,  do  you  love  her?" 

"Jenny  loves  May.  I  love  May.  May  is  Jenny's 
dolly." 

And  from  that  moment,  notwithstanding  the  temporary 
interruptions  of  many  passionate  quarrels,  Jenny  made  that 
dark-eyed  little  sister  one  of  the  great  facts  in  her  life.  This 
was  well  for  May,  because,  as  she  grew  older,  she  grew  into 
a  hunchback. 

Two  more  jears  went  by  of  daily  walks  and  insignificant 


2  4  Carnival 

adventures.  Jenny  was  five.  Alfie  and  Edie  were  now  stal- 
wart scholars,  who  rushed  off  in  the  mornings,  the  former 
armed,  according  to  the  season,  with  chestnuts,  pegtops  or  bags 
of  marbles,  the  latter  full  of  whispers  and  giggles,  always 
one  of  a  bunch  of  other  little  girls  distinguishable  only  by 
dress.  About  this  time  Jenny  came  to  the  conclusion  she 
did  not  want  to  be  a  girl  any  longer.  But  the  bedrock  of 
sexual  differences  puzzled  her:  obviously  one  vital  quality  of 
boyishness  was  the  right  to  wear  breeches.  Jenny  took  off 
her  petticoats  and  stalked  about  the  kitchen. 

"You  rude   thing!"   said   Ruby,   shocked  by  the  exhibition. 

"I'm  not  a  rude  thing,"  Jenny  declared;  "I'm  being  a 
boy." 

"And  wherever  is  your  petticoats?" 

"I  frowed  'em  away,"  said  Jenny.     "I'm  a  boy." 

"You're  rude  little  girl." 

"I'm  not  a  girl.  I  won't  be  a  girl.  I  want  to  be  a  boy." 
Jenny  darted  for  the  street,  encountering  by  the  gate  the 
outraged  blushes  of  Edie  and  her  bunch  of  secretive  com- 
panions. 

"Did  you  ever?"  said  the  ripest.     "Look  at  Edie's  sister." 

Boys  opposite  began  to  "holler."  Alfie  appeared  bent 
double  in  an  effort  to  secure  a  blood  ally.  He  lost  at  once 
the  marble  and  the  respect  of  his  schoolfellows.  His  confu- 
sion was  terrible.  His  sister  skirtless  before  the  public  eye! 
Young  Jenny  making  him  look  like  a  fool ! 

"Go  on  in,  you  little  devil,"  he  shouted.  He  ground  his 
teeth. 

"Go  on  in!" 

Ruby  was  by  this  time  in  pursuit  of  the  rebel.  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn  had  been  warned  and  was  already  at  the  gate.  Alfie, 
haunted  by  a  thousand  mocking  eyes,  fled  to  his  room  and 
wept  tears  of  shame.  Edie  broke  away  from  her  friends,  and 
stood,  breathing  very  fast,  in  petrified  anticipation.  Jenny 
was  led  indoors  and  up  to  bed. 

"Why  can't  I  be  a  boy?"  she  moaned. 


Dawn  Shadows  25 

"Well,  there's  a  sauce!"  said  Ruby.  "However  on  earth 
can  you  be  a  boy  when  you've  been  made  a  girl?" 

"But  I  don't  want  to  be  a  girl." 

"Well,  you've  got  to  be,  and  that's  all  about  it.  You'll 
be  fidgeting  for  the  moon  next.  Besides,  if  you  go  trapesing 
round  half-dressed,  the  policeman'll  have  you." 

Jenny  had  heard  of  the  powers  of  the  policeman  for  a  long 
time.  Those  guardians  of  order  stood  for  her  as  sinister,  in- 
human figures,  always  ready  to  spring  on  little  girls  and  carry 
them  ofif  to  unknown  places.  She  was  never  taught  to  regard 
them  as  kindly  defenders  on  whom  one  could  rely  in  emer- 
gencies, but  looked  upon  them  with  all  the  suspicion  of  a  dog 
for  a  uniform.  Their  large  quiescence  and  their  habit  of  loom- 
ing unexpectedly  round  corners  shed  a  cloud  upon  the  sun- 
niest moment.  They  were  images  of  vengeance  at  whose 
approach  even  boys  huddled  together,  shamefaced. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  came  upstairs  to  interview  her  discontented 
daughter. 

"Don't  you  ever  do  any  such  thing  again.  Behaving  like 
a  tomboy!" 

"Why  mayn't  I  be  a  boy?" 

"Because  you're  a  girl." 

"Who  said  so?" 

"God." 

"Who's  God  ?" 

"That's  neither  here  nor  there." 

God  was  another  shadow  upon  enjoyment.  He  was  not 
to  be  found  by  pillar  boxes.  He  did  not  lurk  in  archways,  it 
is  true.  He  was  apparently  not  a  policeman,  but  something 
bigger,  even,  than  a  policeman.  She  had  seen  His  picture — 
old  and  irritable,  among  the  clouds. 

"Why  did  God  say  so?" 

"Because  He  knows  best." 

"But  I  want  to  be  a  boy." 

"Would  you  like  me  to  cut  off  all  your  curls?" 

"No— 0—0." 


2  6  Carnival 

"Well,  if  you  want  to  be  a  boy,  off  they'll  have  to  come. 
Don't  make  any  mistake  about  that — every  one,  and  I'll  give 
them  to  May.     Then  you'll  be  a  sight." 

"Am  I  a  girl  because  I'm  pretty?" 

"Yes." 

"Is  that  what  girls  are  for?" 

"Yes." 

This  adventure  made  Jenny  much  older  because  it  set  her 
imagination  working,  or  rather  it  made  her  imagination  con- 
centrate. Reasons  and  causes  began  to  float  nebulously  before 
her  mind.  She  began  to  ask  questions.  Gone  was  the  placid 
acceptance  of  facts.  Gone  was  the  stolid  life  of  babyhood. 
Darkness  no  longer  terrified  her  because  it  was  not  light,  but 
because  it  was  populated  with  inhabitants  both  dismal  and 
ill-minded.  At  first  these  shapes  were  undefined,  mere  cloudy 
visualizations  of  Ruby's  vague  threats.  Bogymen  existed  in 
cupboards  and  other  places  of  secluded  darkness,  but  without 
any  appearance  capable  of  making  a  pictorial  impression.  It 
was  a  Punch  and  Judy  show  that  first  endowed  the  night  with 
visible  and  malicious  shadows. 

The  sound  of  the  drum  boomed  from  the  far  end  of  Hag- 
worth  Street.  The  continual  reiteration  of  the  pipes'  short 
phrase  of  melody  summoned  boys  and  girls  from  every  area. 
The  miniature  theater  stood  up  tall  in  a  mystery  of  curtains. 
Row  after  row  of  children  was  formed,  row  upon  row  waited 
patiently  till  the  showman  left  off  his  two  instruments  and 
gave  the  word  to  begin.  Down  below,  ineffably  magical, 
sounded  the  squeaking  voice  of  Punch.  Up  he  came,  swing- 
ing his  little  legs  across  the  sill;  up  he  came  in  a  glory  of 
red  and  yellow,  and  a  jingle  of  bells.  Jenny  gazed  spell- 
bound from  her  place  in  the  very  front  row.  She  laughed 
gayly  at  this  world  of  long  noses  and  squeaking  merriment, 
of  awkward,  yet  incredibly  agile  movement.  She  turned 
round  to  see  how  the  bigger  children  behind  enjoyed  it  all, 
and  fidgeted  from  one  foot  to  the  other  in  an  ecstasy  of  appre- 
ciation.     She    laughed    when    Punch    hit    Judy;    she   laughed 


Dawn  Shadows  27 

louder  still  when  he  threw  the  baby  into  the  street.  She 
gloried  in  his  discomfiture  of  the  melancholy  showman  with 
squeaky  wit.  He  was  a  wonderful  fellow,  this  Punch;  always 
victorious  with  stick  and  tongue.  His  defeat  of  the  beadle 
was  magnificent;  his  treatment  of  Jim  Crow  a  triumph  of 
strategy.  To  be  sure,  he  was  no  match  for  Joey,  the  clown. 
But  lived  there  the  mortal  who  could  have  contended  suc- 
cessfully with  such  a  jovial  and  active  and  indefatigable 
assailant? 

Jenny  was  beginning  to  see  the  world  with  new  eyes.  The 
kitchen  of  Number  Seventeen  became  a  dull  place;  the  street 
meant  more  to  her  than  ever  now,  with  the  possibility  of 
meeting  in  reality  this  enchanted  company,  to  whom  obedi- 
ence, repression,  good-behavior  were  just  so  many  jokes  to  be 
laughed  out  of  existence.  How  much  superior  to  Jenny's 
house  was  Punch's  house.  How  delicious  it  would  be  to  bury 
dogs  in  coffins.  But  the  clown !  After  all,  he  could  have 
turned  even  Jenny's  house  into  one  long  surprise.  He  summed 
up  all  Jenny's  ideas  of  enjoyment.  She  heard  Ruby  behind 
her  commenting  upon  his  action  as  "owdacious."  The  same 
unsympathetic  tyrant  had  often  called  her  "owdacious,"  and 
here,  before  her  dancing  deep  eyes,  w^as  audacity  made  mani- 
fest. How  she  longed  to  be  actually  of  this  merriment,  not 
merely  a  spectator  at  the  back  of  whose  mind  bed  loomed  as 
the  dull  but  inevitable  climax  of  all  delight. 

Then  came  the  episode  of  the  hangman,  and  the  quavering 
note  of  fear  in  Punch's  voice  found  a  responsive  echo  in  her 
own, 

"He's  going  to  be  hanged,"  said  Ruby  gloatingly. 

Jenny  began  to  feel  uneasy.  Even  in  this  irresponsible 
world,  there  was  unpleasantness  in  the  background. 

Then  came  the  ghost — a  terrifying  figure.  And  then  came 
a  green  dragon,  with  cruel,  snapping  jaws — even  more  terri- 
fying— but  most  terrifying  of  all  was  Ruby's  answer  to  her 
whispered    inquiry: 

"Why  was  all  that?" 


2  8  Carnival 

"Because  Punch  was  a  bad,  wicked  man." 

The  street  so  crudely  painted  on  the  back  of  the  puppet- 
show  took  on  suddenly  a  strange  and  uninviting  emptiness, 
seemed  to  stand  out  behind  the  figures  with  a  hrrrid  likeness 
to  Hagworth  Street,  to  Hagworth  Street  in  a  bad  dream 
devoid  of  friendly  faces.  Was  a  green  dragon  the  end  of 
pleasure?     It  was  all  very  disconcerting. 

The  play  was  over;  the  halfpennies  had  been  gathered  in. 
The  lamplighter  was  coming  round,  and  through  the  dusk 
the  noise  of  pipe  and  drums  slowly  grew  faint  in  the  distance 
with   a  melancholy  foreboding  of  finality. 

Jenny's  brain  was  buzzing  with  a  multitude  of  self-contra- 
dictory impressions.  For  once,  in  a  way,  she  was  glad  to  hold 
tightly  on  to  Ruby's  rough,  red  hand.  But  the  conversation 
between  Ruby  and  another  big  girl  on  the  way  home  was  not 
encouraging. 

"And  she  was  found  in  an  area  with  her  throat  cut  open  in 
a  stream  of  blood,  and  the  man  as  did  it  got  away  and  ain't 
been   caught  yet." 

"There's  been  a  lot  of  these  murders  lately,"  said  Ruby. 

"Hundreds,"  corroborated  her  friend. 

"Every  night,"  added  Ruby,  "sometimes  two." 

"I've  been  afraid  to  sleep  alone.  You  can  hear  the  paper 
boys  calling  of  'em  out." 

True  enough,  that  very  night,  Jenny,  lying  awake,  heard 
down  the  street  cries  gradually  coming  nearer  in  colloquial 
announcement  of  sudden  death,  in  hoarse  revelations  of  blood 
and  disaster. 

"Could  I  be  murdered?"  she  asked  next  day. 

"Of  course  you  could,"  was  Ruby's  cheerful  reply.  "Espe- 
cially if  you  isn't  a  good  girl." 

Jenny  went  over  in  her  mind  the  drama  of  Punch  and 
Judy.  Murder  meant  being  knocked  on  the  head  with  a  stick 
and  thrown  out  of  the  window. 

That  night  again  the  cries  went  surging  up  and  down  the 
street.      Details    of    mutilation    floated  in  through  the  foggy 


Dawn  Shadows  29 

air  till  the  flickering  night-light  showed  peeping  hangmen  in 
every  dim  corner.  Jenny  covered  herself  with  the  blankets 
and  pressed  hot,  sleepless  eyelids  close  to  her  eyes,  hoping  to 
distract  herself  from  the  contemplation  of  horror  by  the  gay 
wheels  of  dazzling  colors  which  such  an  action  always  pro- 
duces. The  wheels  appeared,  but  presently  turned  to  the  sim- 
ilitude of  blood-red  spots.  She  opened  her  eyes  again.  The 
room  seemed  monstrously  large.  Edie  was  beside  her.  She 
shook  her  sleeping  sister. 

"Wake  up;  oh,  Edie,  do  wake  up!" 

"Whatever  is  it,  you  great  nuisance?" 

In  the  far  distance,  "Another  Horrible  Murder  in  White- 
chapel,"  answered  Edie's  question,  and  Jenny  began  to  scream. 


chapter  IV:   The  Ancient  Mischief 

7   H    ^KERE  was  nothing  to  counterbalance   the  terrors  of 

■  childhood   in    Hagworth   Street.     Outside   the   hope 

-*-  of  one  day  being  able  to  do  as  she  liked,  Jenny  had 
no  ideals.  Worse,  she  had  no  fairyland.  Soon  she  would  be 
given  at  school  a  bald  narrative  of  Cinderella  or  Red  Riding 
Hood,  where  every  word  above  a  monosyllable  would  be 
divided  in  such  a  way  that  hyphens  would  always  seem  of 
greater  importance  than  elves. 

About  this  time  Jenny's  greatest  joy  was  music,  and  in  con- 
nection with  this  an  incident  occurred  which,  though  she  never 
remembered  it  herself,  had  yet  such  a  tremendous  importance 
in  some  of  its  side-issues  as  to  deserve  record. 

It  was  a  fine  day  in  early  summer.  All  the  morning,  Jenny, 
on  account  of  household  duties,  had  been  kept  indoors,  and, 
some  impulse  of  freedom  stirring  in  her  young  heart,  she 
slipped  out  alone  into  the  sunlit  street.  Somewhere  close  at 
hand  a  piano-organ  v/as  playing  the  intermezzo  from  "Caval- 
leria,"  and  the  child  tripped  towards  the  sound.  Soon  she 
came  upon  the  player,  and  stood,  finger  in  mouth,  abashed 
for  a  moment,  but  the  Italian  beamed  at  her — an  honest  smile 
of  welcome,  for  she  was  obviously  no  bringer  of  pence. 
Wooed  by  his  friendliness,  Jenny  began  to  dance  in  perfect 
time,  marking  with  little  feet  the  slow  rhythm  of  the   tune. 

In  scarlet  serge  dress  and  cap  of  scarlet  stockinette,  she 
danced  to  the  tinsel  melody.  Unhampered  by  anything  save 
the  need  for  self-expression,  she  expressed  the  joyousness  of 
a  London  morning  as  her  feet  took  the  paving-stones  all  dap- 
pled and   flecked  with  shadows  of  the  tall  plane  tree  at  the 

30 


The  Ancient  Mischief  3 1 

end  of  Hagworth  Street.  She  was  a  dainty  child,  with  silvery 
curls  and  almond  eyes  where  laughter  rippled  in  a  blue  so 
deep  you  would  have  vowed  they  were  brown.  The  scarlet 
of  her  dress,  through  long  use,  had  taken  on  the  soft  texture 
of  a  pastel. 

Picture  her,  then,  dancing  alone  in  the  quiet  Islington  street 
to  this  faded  tune  of  Italy,  as  presently  down  the  street  that 
seemed  stained  with  the  warmth  of  alien  suns  shuffled  an  old 
man.  He  stopped  to  regard  the  dancing  child  over  the  crook 
of  his  ebony  walking-stick. 

"Aren't  you  Mrs.  Raeburn's  little  girl?"  he  asked. 

Jenny  melted  into  shyness,  lost  nearly  all  her  beauty,  and 
became  bunched  and  ordinary  for  a  moment. 

"Yes,"  she  whispered. 

"Humph!"  grunted  the  old  man,  and  solemnly  presented 
the  organ  grinder  with  a  halfpenny. 

Ruby  O'Connor's  voice  rang  out  down  the  street. 

"Come  back  directly,  you  limb!"  she  called.  Jenny  looked 
irresolute,  but  presently  decided  to  obey. 

That  same  evening  the  old  man  tapped  at  the  kitchen 
door. 

"Come  in,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "Is  that  you,  Mr.  Vergoe? 
Something  gone  WTong  with  your  gas  again?  I  do  wish 
Charlie  would  remember  to  mend  it." 

"No,  there's  nothing  the  matter  with  the  gas,"  explained 
the  lodger.  (For  Mr,  Vergoe  was  the  lodger  of  Nunlber 
Seventeen.)  "Only  I  think  that  child  of  yours'll  make  a 
dancer   some  day." 

"Make  a  what?"  said  the  mother. 

"A  dancer.  I  was  watching  her  this  morning.  Wonder- 
ful notion  of  time.  You  ought  to  have  her  trained,  so  to 
speak." 

"My  good   gracious,   whatever   for?" 

"The  stage,  of  course." 

"No,  thank  you.  I  don't  want  none  of  my  children  gad- 
ding round  theaters." 


3  2  Carnival 

"But  you  like  a  good  play  yourself?" 

"That's  quite  another  kettle  of  fish.  Thank  you  all  the 
same,  Mr.  Vergoe,  Jenny'll  not  go  on  to  the  stage." 

"You're  making  a  great  mistake,"  he  insisted.  "And  I  sup- 
pose I  know  something  about  dancing,  or  ought  to,  as  it  were." 

"I  have  my  own  ideas  what's  good  for  Jenny." 

"But  ain't  she  going  to  have  a  say  in  the  matter,  so  to 
speak?" 

"My  dear  man,  she  isn't  seven  yet." 

"None  too  early  to  start  dancing." 

"I'd  rather  not,  thank  you,  and  please  don't  start  putting 
fancies   in   the  child's  head." 

"Of  course,  I  shouldn't.  Of  course  not.  That  ain't  to  be 
thought  of." 

But  the  very  next  day  Mr.  Walter  Vergoe  invited  Jenny 
to  come  and  see  some  pretty  picture-books,  and  Jenny,  with 
much  finger  and  pinafore  sucking  and  buried  cheeks,  followed 
him  through  the  door  near  which  she  had  always  been  com- 
manded not  to  loiter. 

"Come  in,  my  dear,  and  look  at  Mr.  Vergoe's  pretty  pic- 
tures. Don't  be  shy.  Here's  a  bag  of  lollipops,"  he  said, 
holding  up  a  pennyworth  of  bull's-eyes. 

On  the  jolly  June  morning  the  room  where  the  old  clown 
had  elected  to  spend  his  frequently  postponed  retirement  was 
exceedingly  pleasant.  The  sun  streamed  in  through  the  big 
bay-window:  the  sparrows  cheeped  and  twittered  outside,  and 
on  the  window-sill  a  box  of  round-faced  pansies  danced  in  the 
merry  June  breeze.  The  walls  were  hung  with  silhouettes 
of  the  great  dead  and  tinsel  pictures  of  bygone  dramas  and 
harlequinades  and  tragedies.  There  were  daguerreotypes  of 
beauties  in  crinolines,  of  ruddy-cheeked  actors  and  apple-faced 
old  actresses.  There  was  a  pinchbeck  crown  and  scepter  hung 
below  a  smallsword  with  guard  of  cut  steel.  There  were 
framed  letters  and  testimonials  on  paper  gradually  rusting, 
written  with  ink  that  was  every  day  losing  more  and  more  of 
its   ancient   blackness.     There   were   steel   engravings  of   this 


The  Ancient  Mischief  33 

or  that  pillared  Theatre  Royal,  stuck  round  with  menus  of 
long-digested  suppers;  and  on  the  mantlepiece  was  a  row  of 
champagne  corks  whose  glad  explosions  happened  years  ago. 
There  was  a  rosewood  piano,  whose  ivory  keys  were  the  color 
of  coffee,  whose  fretwork  displayed  a  pleated  silk  that  once 
was  crimson  as  wine.  But  the  most  remarkable  thing  in  the 
room  was  a  clown's  dress  hanging  below  a  wreath  of  sausages 
from  a  hook  on  the  door.  It  used,  in  the  days  of  the  clown's 
activity,  to  hang  thus  in  his  dressing-room,  and  when  he  came 
out  of  the  stage  door  for  the  last  time  and  went  home  to 
stewed  tripe  and  cockles  with  two  old  friends,  he  took  the 
dress  with  him  in  a  brown-paper  parcel  and  hung  it  up  after 
supper.  It  confronted  him  now  like  a  disembodied  joy  whose 
race  was  over.  Rheumatic  were  the  knees  that  once  upon  a 
time  were  bent  in  the  wide  laugh  of  welcome,  w^hile  in  the 
corner  a  red-hot  poker's  vermilion  fire  was  harmless  forever- 
more.  Dreaming  on  winter  eves  near  Christmas  time,  Mr. 
Vergoe  would  think  of  those  ample  pockets  that  once  held 
inexhaustible  supplies  of  crackers.  Dreaming  on  winter  eves 
by  the  fireside,  he  would  hear  out  of  the  past  the  laughter  of 
children  and  the  flutter  of  the  footlights,  and  would  murmur 
to  himself  in  whistling  accents:     "Here  we  are  again." 

There  he  was  again,  indeed,  an  old  man  by  a  dying  fire, 
sitting  among  the  ashes  of  burnt-out  jollities. 

But  on  the  morning  of  Jenny's  visit  the  clown  was  very 
much  awake.  For  all  Mrs.  Raeburn's  exhortations  not  to  put 
fancies  in  the  child's  head,  Mr.  Vergoe  was  very  sure  in 
his  own  mind  of  Jenny's  ultimate  destiny.  He  was  not  con- 
cerned with  the  propriety  of  Clapton  aunts,  with  the  respecta- 
bility of  drapers'  wives.  He  was  not  haunted  by  the  severe 
ghost  of  Frederick  Horner,  the  chemist.  As  he  watched  Jenny 
dancing  to  the  sugared  melodies  of  "Cavalleria,"  he  beheld  an 
artist  in  the  making:  that  was  enough  for  Mr.  Vergoe.  He 
owed  no  obligations  to  anything  except  Art,  and  no  responsi- 
bleness  to  anybody  except  the  public. 

"Here's  a  lot  of  pretty  things,  ain't  therc;  my  dear?" 


3  4  Carnival 

"Yes,"  Jenny  agreed,  with  eyes  buried  deep  in  a  scarlet 
sleeve. 

"Come  along  now  and  sit  on  this  chair,  which  belonged, 
so  they  say,  so  they  told  me  in  Red  Lion  Court  where  I 
bought  it,  to  the  great  Joseph  Grimaldi.  But  then,  you 
never  heard  of  Grimaldi.  Ah,  well,  he  must  have  been  a 
very  wonderful  clown,  by  all  accounts,  though  I  never  saw 
him  myself.  Perhaps  you  don't  even  know  what  a  clown  is? 
Do  you?  What's  a  clown,  my  dear?" 
1   dunno. 

"Well,  he's  a  figure  of  fun,  so  to  speak,  a  clown  is.  He's 
a  cove  dressed  all  in  white  with  a  white  face." 

"Was  it  a  clown  in  Punch  and  Judy?" 

"That's  right.  That's  it.  My  stars  and  garters,  if  you 
ain't  a  knowing  one.     Well,   I  was  a  clown  once." 

"When  you  was  a  little  boy?" 

"No,  when  I  was  a  man,  as  you  might  say." 

"Are  clowns  good?"  inquired  Jenny. 

"Good  as  gold — so  to  speak — good  as  gold,  clowns  are.  A 
bit  high-spirited  when  they  come  on  in  the  harlequinade,  but 
all  in  good  part.  I  suppose,  taking  him  all  round,  you 
wouldn't  find  a  better  fellow  than  a  clown.  Only  a  bit  high- 
spirited,  I'd  have  you  understand.  'Oh,  what  a  lark,'  that's 
their  motto,  as  it  were." 

Ensconced  in  the  great  Grimaldi's  chair,  Jenny  regarded 
the  ancient  Mischief  with  wondering  glances  and,  as  she 
sucked  one  of  his  lollipops,  thoroughly  approved  of  him. 

"Look  at  this  pretty  lady,"  he  said,  placing  before  her  a 
colored  print  of  some  famous  Columbine  of  the  past. 

"Why  is  she  on  her  toes?"  asked  Jenny. 

"Light  as  a  fairy,  she  was,"  commented  Mr.  Vergoe,  with 
a  bouquet  of  admiration  in  his  voice. 

"Is  she  trying  to  reach  on  to  the  mantlepiece  ?"  Jenny 
wanted  to   know. 

"My  stars  and  garters,  not  she!  She's  dancing — toe-danc- 
ing, as  they  call  it."  •* 


The  Ancient  Mischief  35 

"I  don't  dance  like  that,"  said  Jenny. 

"Of  course  you  don't,  but  you  could  with  practice.  With 
practice,  I  wouldn't  say  as  you  mightn't  be  as  light  as  a  pan- 
cake, so  to  speak." 

"I  can  stand  on  my  toes,"  declared  Jenny  proudly. 

"Can  you  now?"  said  Mr.  Vergoe  admiringly. 

"To  reach  fings  oflf  of  the  table." 

"Ah,  but   then  you'd   be   holding  on  to   it,   eh?     Tight  as 
wax,  you'd  be  holding  on  to  it.     That  won't  do,  that  won't. 
You  must  be  able  to  dance  all  over  the  room  on  your  toes." 
Can  you : 

"Not  now,  my  dear,  not  now.  I  could  once,  though.  But 
I  never  cared  for  playing  Harlequin." 

"Eh?" 

"That's  a  fellow  you  haven't  met  yet." 

"Is  he  good?" 

"Good — in  a  manner  of  speaking — but  an  awkward  sort 
of  a  laddie  with  his  saber  and  all.  But  no  malice  at  bottom, 
I'm  sure  of  that." 

"Can  I  be  a  C'mbine?" 

"Why  not?"  exclaimed  the  old  man.  "Why  not?"  And 
he  thumped  the  table  to  mark  the  question's  emphasis. 

Jenny  became  very  thoughtful  and  wished  she  had  a  petti- 
coat all  silver  and  pink,  like  the  pretty  lady  on  her  toes. 

"Would  I  be  pretty?"  she  asked  at  length. 

"Wonderfully  pretty,  I  should  say." 

"Would  all  the  people  say — 'pretty  Jenny'?" 

"No  more  wouldn't  that  surprise  me,"  declared  Mr. 
Vergoe. 

"Would  I  be  good?" 

The  old  man  looked  puzzled. 

"There's  nothing  against  it,"  he  affirmed.  "Nothing,  in 
a  manner  of  speaking;  but  there,  what  some  call  good,  others 
don't,  and  I  can't  say  as  I've  troubled  much  which  way  it 
was,  so  to  speak,  as  long  as  they  was  good  pals  and  jolly 
companions  everyone." 


36 


Carnival 


"What's  pals?" 

"Ah,  there  you've  put  your  finger  on  it — as  it  were — 
what's  a  pal?  Well,  I  should  say  he  was  a  hearty  fellow — 
in  a  manner  of  speaking — a  fellow  as  would  come  down  hand- 
some on  Treasury  night  when  you  hadn't  paid  your  landlady 
the  week  before.  A  pal  wouldn't  ever  crab  your  business, 
wouldn't  stare  too  hard  if  j-ou  happened  to  use  his  grease. 
A  pal  wouldn't  let  you  sleep  over  the  train-call  on  a  Sunday 
morning.  A  pal  wouldn't  make  love  to  your  girl  on  a  wet, 
foggy  afternoon  in  Blackburn  or  Warrington.  What's  pals? 
Pals  are  fellows  who  stand  on  the  prompt  side  of  life — so 
to  speak — and  stick  there  to  the  Ring  Down." 

All  of  which  may  or  may  not  be  an  excellent  definition 
of  "paliness,"  but  left  Jenny,  if  possible,  more  completely 
ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  a  pal  than  she  was  when  Mr. 
Vergoe  set  out  to  answer  her  inquiry. 

"WTiat's  pals?"  she  reiterated  therefore. 

"Not  quite  clear  in  your  little  head  yet — as  it  were — well, 
I  should  say,  we're  pals,  me  and  you." 

"Are  pals  good?" 

"The  best.  The  very,  very  best.  Now  you  just  listen  to 
me  for  a  minute.  My  granddaughter,  Miss  Lilli  Vergoe,  that 
is,  she's  wonderfully  fond  of  the  old  man,  that  is  your  humble. 
Now  next  time  she  comes  round  to  see  him,  I'll  send  up  the 
call-boy — as  it  might  be." 

Hereupon  Mr.  Vergoe  closed  his  left  eye,  put  his  fore- 
finger very  close  to  the  other  eye,  and  shook  it  knowingly 
several  times. 

"Now  you'd  better  go  on  or  there'll  be  a  stage  wait,  and 
get  back  to  ma  as  quick  as  you  like." 

Jenny  prepared   to  obey. 

"Wait  a  minute,  though,  wait  a  minute,"  and  the  old  man 
fumbled  in  a  drawer  from  which  at  last  he  extracted  a 
cracker.  "See  that?  That's  a  cracker,  that  is.  Sometimes 
one  or  two  used  to  get  hidden  in  my  pockets  on  last  nights, 
and — well,  I  used  to  keep  'em  as  a  recollection  of  good  times, 


The  Ancient  Mischief  37 

so  to  speak.  This  one  was  Exeter,  not  so  very  long  ago 
neitlier.  Now  you  hook  on  to  that  end  and  I'll  hook  on  to 
this,  and,  when  I  say  'three,'  pull  as  hard  as  you  like."  The 
antagonists  faced  each  other.  The  cracker  came  in  half  with 
the  larger  portion  in  Jenny's  hand,  but  the  powder  had  long 
ago  lost  all  power  of  report.  Age  and  damp  had  subdued  its 
ferocity. 

"A  wrong  'un,"  muttered  the  old  man  regretfully.  "Too 
bad,  too  bad!  Well,  accidents  will  happen — as  it  were. 
Come  along,  open  your  half." 

Jenny  produced  a  compact  cylinder  of  mauve  paper. 

"Is  it  a  sweet?"  she  wondered. 

"No,  it's  a  cap.  By  gum,  it's  a  cap.  Don't  tear  it.  Steady! 
Careful  docs  it." 

Mr.  Vergoe  was  tremendously  excited  by  the  prospect.  At 
last  between  them  the}^  unrolled  a  gilded  paper  crown,  which 
he  placed  round  Jenny's  curls. 

"There  you  are,"  he  observed  proudly.  "Fairy  Queen 
as  large  as  life  and  twice  as  natur::!.  Now  all  you  want  is  a 
wand  with  a  gold  star  on  the  end  of  it,  and  there's  nothing 
you  couldn't  do,  in  a  manner  of  speaking.  Now  pop  off  to 
ma  and  show  her  your  crown."  He  held  her  for  a  moment  up  to 
the  glass,  in  which  Jenny  regarded  herself  with  a  new  interest, 
and  when  he  set  her  down  again  she  went  out  of  the  room 
with  the  careful  step  of  one  who  has  imagined  greatness. 

Downstairs  she  was  greeted  by  her  mother  with  exclama- 
tions of  astonishment. 

"Whate\er  have  you  got  on   your  head?" 

"A  crown." 

"Who  gave  it  you,  for  Heaven's  sake?" 

"The  lodger." 

"Mr.  Vergoe?" 

Jenny  nodded. 

"I  may  wear  it,  mayn't  I,  mother?" 

"Yes,  I  suppose  so,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn  grudgingly.  "But 
don't  get  putting  it   in  your  mouth." 


38 


Carnival 


"There's  a  Miss  Vain,"  said  Ruby. 

"I'm  not." 

"Peacocks  like  looking-glasses,"  nagged   Ruby. 

"I  isn't  a  peacock.     I's  a  queen." 

"There's  a  sauce!     Whoever  heard?"  commented   Ruby. 

The  clown's  sentimental  and  pleasantly  rhetorical  descrip- 
tions had  no  direct  influence  on  the  child's  mind.  But  when 
his  granddaughter,  Miss  Lilli  Vergoe,  all  chiffon  and  ostrich 
plumes,  took  her  upon  a  peau  de  soie  lap,  and  clasped  her 
rosy  cheeks  to  a  frangipani  breast,  Jenny  thought  she  had 
never  experienced  any  sensation  half  so   delicious. 

Amid  the  heavy  glooms  and  fusty  smells  of  the  old  house 
in  Hagworth  Street,  Miss  Lilli  Vergoe  blossomed  like  an 
exotic  flower,  or  rather,  in  Jenny's  own  simile,  like  lather. 
Her  china-blue  eyes  were  amazingly  attractive.  Her  honey- 
colored  hair  and  Dresden  cheeks  fascinated  the  impressionable 
child  with  all  the  wonder  of  an  expensive  doll.  There  was 
no  part  of  her  that  was  not  soft  and  beautiful  to  stroke.  She 
woke  in  Jenny  a  cooing  affection  such  as  had  never  been  by 
her  bestowed  upon  a  living  soul. 

Moreover,  what  Mr.  Vergoe  talked  about,  Lilli  showed  her 
how  to  achieve;  sc  'hat,  unknov.^n  to  Mrs.  Raeburn,  Jenny 
slowly  acquired  that  ambition  for  public  appreciation  which 
makes  the  actress.  Terpsichore  herself,  carrying  credentials 
from  Apollo,  would  not  have  been  a  more  powerful  mistress 
than  Lilli  Vergoe,  a  second  line  girl  in  the  Corps  de  Ballet 
of  the  Orient  Palace  of  Varieties.  Under  her  tuition  Jenny 
learned  a  hundred  airs  and  graces,  which,  when  re-enacted 
in  the  kitchen  of  Number  Seventeen,  either  caused  a  command 
to  cease  fidgeting  or  an  invitation  to  look  at  the  comical  child. 

She  learned,  too,  more  than  mere  airs  and  graces.  She 
was  grounded  very  thoroughly  in  primary  techinque,  so  that, 
as  time  went  on,  she  could  step  passably  well  upon  her  toes 
and  achieve  the  "splits"  and  "strides"  and  "handsprings"  of 
a  more  acrobatic  mode. 

Therefore,  though  in  the  September  just  before  her  seventh 


The  Ancient  Mischief  39 

birthday  Mrs.  Raeburn  decided  it  was  time  to  begin  Jenny's 
education,  it  is  very  obvious  that  Jenny's  education  was  really 
begun  on  the  sunlit  morning  when  Mr.  Vergoe  saw  her  danc- 
ing to  a  sugared  melody  from  "Cavalleria." 

School,  however,  meant  for  Jenny  not  so  much  the  acquire- 
ment of  elementary  knowledge,  the  ability  to  distinguish  a 
cow  from  a  sheep,  as  an  opportunity  to  exhibit  more  satisfac- 
tory attainments  she  had  developed  from  the  instigation  of 
Miss  Lilli  Vergoe.  Neither  her  mother  nor  Ruby  nor  Alfie 
nor  Edie  nor  anyone  in  the  household  had  been  a  perfect 
audience.  Her  schoolfellows,  on  the  other  hand,  marveled 
with  delighted  respect  at  her  pas  seuls  upon  the  asphalt  play- 
ground of  the  board  school  and  clapped  and  jumped  their 
praise. 

Jenny  had  no  idea  of  the  stage  at  present.  She  had  never 
yet  been  inside  a  theater;  and  was  still  far  from  any  concep- 
tion of  art  as  a  profession.  It  merely  happened  that  she 
could  dance,  that  dancing  pleased  her,  and,  less  important, 
that  it  made  her  popular  with  innumerable  little  girls  of  her 
own   age,    and  even  older. 

By  some  instinct  of  advisable  concealment,  she  kept  this 
habit  of  publicity  a  secret  from  her  family.  Edie,  to  be  sure, 
was  aware  of  it,  and  warned  her  once  or  twice  of  the  im- 
morality of  showing  off;  but  Edie  was  too  indolent  to  go 
into  the  matter  more  deeply  and  too  conscious  of  her  own 
comparative  greatness  through  seniority  to  spend  much  time 
in  the  guardianship  of  a  younger  sister. 

So  for  a  year  Jenny  practiced  and  became  daily  more  pro- 
ficient, and  danced  every  morning  to  school. 


chapter  V:  Pretty  Apples  in  Eden 

SHORTLY  after  her  eighth  birthdaj'  Jenny  was  puzzled 
by  an  incident  which,  with  its  uneasy  suggestions,  led 
her  to  postulate  to  herself  for  the  first  time  that 
mere  escape  from  childhood  did  not  finall"  solve  the  problem 
of  existence. 

She  had  long  been  aware  of  the  incomplete  affection  be- 
tween her  parents;  that  is  to  say,  she  always  regarded  her 
father  as  something  that  seemed  like  herself  or  a  chair  to  be 
perpetually  in  her  mother's  way. 

She  had  no  feeling  of  awe  towards  Mr.  Charles  Raeburn, 
but  rather  looked  upon  him  as  a  more  extensive  counterpart 
of  Alfie,  both  prone  to  many  deeds  of  mischief.  She  had  no 
conception  of  her  father  as  a  bread-winner;  her  mother  was 
so  plainly  the  head  of  the  house. 

In  the  early  morning  her  father  vanished  to  work  and  only 
came  back  just  before  bedtime  to  eat  a  large  tea,  like  Alfie, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  was  reprimanded  and  pushed  about 
and  ordered,  like  Alfie,  to  behave  himself.  To  be  sure,  he 
had  liberty  of  egress  at  a  later  hour,  for  once,  when  in  the 
midst  of  nightly  fears  she  had  rushed  in  the  last  breath 
of  a  dream  along  the  landing  to  her  mother's  room, 
she  saw  him  coming  rosily  up  the  stairs.  He  made  no  attempts 
to  justify  his  late  arrival  with  tales  of  goblin  accidents  as 
Alfie  was  wont  to  do.  He  did  not  ascribe  the  cracked  egg 
appearance  of  his  bowler  hat  to  the  onset  of  a  baker's  bar- 
row. He  seemed  so  far  indifferent  to  the  unfinished  look 
of  his  clothes  as  not  to  bother  to  lay  the  blame  on  the 
butcher's  boy.     Her  mother  merely  said: 

40 


Pretty  Apples  in  Eden  41 

"Oh,  it's  you?" 

To  which  Mr.  Raeburn  replied :  "Yes,  Flo,  it's  me,"  and 
began  to  sing  "Ta-ra-ra — boom — de — ay." 

Even  Ruby  O'Connor,  who,  in  earlier  days  at  Hagworth 
Street,  used  to  quell  Alfie  with  terrible  threats  of  a  father's 
vengeance,  gave  them  up  as  ineffective;  for  the  bland  and 
cheerful  Charlie,  losing  the  while  not  a  morsel  of  blandness 
or  cheerfulness,  wms  fast  becoming  an  object  of  contemptuous 
toleration  in  his  own  house.  He  was  a  weak  and  unsuccess- 
ful man,  fond  of  half-pints  and  tales  of  his  own  prowess,  with 
little  to  recommend  him  to  his  family  except  an  undeniable 
gift  of  humorous  description.  Yet,  even  wnth  this,  he  pos- 
sessed no  imagination.  He  was  accustomed  to  treat  the  world 
as  he  would  have  treated  a  spaniel.  "Poor  old  world,"  he 
w^ould  say  in  pitying  intention ;  "poor  old  world."  He 
would  pat  the  universe  on  its  august  head  as  a  pedagogue  slaps 
a  miniature  globe  in  the  schoolroom.  He  never  expected  any- 
thing from  the  world,  which  was  just  as  well,  for  he  certainly 
never  received  very  much.  To  his  wife's  occasional  inquiry 
of  amazed  indignation,  "Why  ever  did  I  come  to  marry 
you?"   he   would    answer: 

"I  don't  know,  Floss.     Because  you  wanted  to,  I  reckon." 

"I  never  wanted  to,"  she  would  protest. 

"Well,  you  didn't,"  he  w^ould  say,  "Some  people  acts 
funny." 

"That's  quite  right." 

Hers  was  the  last  word:  his,  however,  the  pint  of  four 
ale  that  drowned  it. 

Jenny  at  this  stage  in  her  life  was  naturally  incapable  of 
grasping  the  fact  of  her  mother  throwing  herself  away  in 
matrimony;  but  she  was  able  to  ponder  the  queer  result  that, 
however  much  her  mother  might  be  annoyed  by  Charlie,  she 
did  not  seem  able  to  get  rid  of  him. 

Alfie,  with  his  noise  and  clumping  boots,  was  an  equally 
unpleasant  appendage  to  her  life,  but  for  Alfie  she  was  re- 
sponsible.    In  whate\-er  way  children  came  about,  it  was  not 


42  Carnival 

to  be  supposed  they  happened  involuntarily  like  bedtime  or 
showers  of  rain.  Moreover,  mystery  hung  heavy  over  their 
arrival.  Edie  and  Alfie  would  giggle  in  corners,  look  at  each 
other  with  oddly  lighted  eyes,  and  blush  when  certain  sub- 
jects arose  in  conversation.  Human  agency  was  implied,  and 
all  that  talk  of  strawberry-beds  and  cabbage  leaves  so  much 
trickery.  Alfie,  bad  habits  and  all,  was  due  to  her  father  and 
mother  being  married. 

But  why  be  married  when  Alfies  were  the  result?  Why 
not  close  the  door  against  her  father  and  be  rid  of  him?  And 
take  somebody  else  in  exchange?     Who  was  there?     Nobody. 

One  fogg)'  afternoon  early  in  January,  Jenny  came  back 
from  school  to  the  smell  of  a  good  cigar.  She  did  not  know 
it  was  a  good  cigar,  but  the  perfume  hung  about  the  dark 
hall  of  Number  Seventeen  with  a  strange  richness  never  asso- 
ciated in  her  mind  with  the  smell  of  her  father's  smoke.  She 
was  conscious,  too,  from  the  carefully  closed  doors  both  of  the 
parlor  and  the  kitchen,  that  company  was  present.  The  voice 
of  a  polite  conscience  warned  her  not  to  bang  about,  not  to 
shout  "Is  tea  ready,  mother?"  but  rather  to  tread  discreetly 
the  little  distance  to  the  kitchen  and  there  to  await  develop- 
ments. If  Alfie  and  Edie  were  already  arrived  by  a  punc- 
tual chance,  she  would  learn  from  them  the  manner  and 
kind  of  the  company  hid  in  the  parlor. 

The  kitchen  was  empty.  No  tea  was  laid.  Over  her  stole 
an  extraordinary  sensation  of  misgiving.  She  felt  as  if  she 
were  standing  at  the  foot  of  a  ladder  watching  Alfie  about 
some   mischievous   business. 

Presently  Ruby  returned  from  the  scullery,  like  a  sudden 
draught. 

"However  did  you  get  in  so  quiet?"  asked  the  newcomer. 
Then  Jenny  remembered  the  street  door  had  been  open. 

"Who's  in   along  of  mother?" 

"That's  right.    Be  nosey." 

"Tell   us.  Rube." 

"I  can't  tell  what  I  don't  know." 


Pretty  Apples  i?i  Ede?i  43 

"But  you  do  know,"  persisted  Jenii}  ;  "so  tell  us." 

"D'you  think  we  all  wants  to  poke  in  where  we  isn't  wanted, 
like  you.  Miss  Meddlesome?     How  should  I  know?" 

"Well,  I  told  you  yesterday  what  teacher  called  Edie,  so 
tell  us.  Rube;  you  might  tell  us." 

"There  isn't  nothing  to  tell,  you  great  inquisitive  monkey," 
Ruby  declared. 

Then  there  was  a  sound  in  the  hall  of  a  man's  voice,  a 
rich  voice  that  suited  somehow  the  odor  of  the  cigar.  Jenny 
longed  to  peep  round  the  kitchen  door  at  the  visitor,  but  she 
was  afraid  that  Ruby  would  carry  on  about  it.  A  moment 
or  two's  conversation,  and  the  street  door  slammed,  and  when 
her  mother  came  back  from  the  kitchen,  Jenny  was  afraid  to 
ask  bluntly: 

"Who  was  that?" 

Instead  she  announced : 

"We  did  sewing  this  afternoon.  Teacher  said  I  sewed 
well." 

"You  sew  on  with  your  tea,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "And 
wherever  can   Edie  and  Alfie  have  got  to?" 

A  week  or  two  afterwards  Jenny  returned  to  the  same 
smell  of  cigar,  the  same  impression  of  a  rich  and  unusual 
visitor,  but  this  time  the  parlor  door  gaped  to  a  dark  and 
cold  interior,  and  when  Jenny  follov/ed  Ruby  into  the  kitchen, 
he  was  there,  a  large  florid  man,  with  a  big  cigar  and  heavy 
mustache  and  a  fur  coat  open  to  a  snowy  collar  and  shining 
tie-pin. 

"And  this  is  Jenny,  is  it?"  he  said  in  the  cigar  voice. 

Jenny  kissed  him  much  as  she  would  have  kissed  the  walrus 
he  slightly  resembled ;  then  she  retreated,  finger  in  mouth, 
backwards  until  she  bumped  against  the  table  by  which  she 
leaned  to  look  at  the  stranger,  much  as  she  would  have 
looked  at  a  walrus. 

Her  father  came  in  after  a  while,  and  his  wife  said: 

"Mr.  Timpany." 

"Eh?"  said  Charlie. 
4 


44  Carnival 

"Mr.  Timpany,  a  friend  of  father's." 

"Oh,"  said  Charlie.  "Pleased  to  meet  you,"  with  which 
he  retired  to  a  chair  in  a  dusky  corner  and  was  silent  for  a 
long  time.     At  last  he  asked: 

"Have  you  been  to  Paris,  Mr.  .  .  .  Tippery?  Thrln- 
penny,   I   should  say." 

"Timpany,  Charlie.  I  wish  you'd  listen.  Have  you  got 
cloth  ears?  Of  course  he's  been  to  Paris,  and,  for  gracious, 
don't  you  start  your  stories.  One  would  think  to  hear  you 
talk  as  you  were  the  only  man  on  earth  as  had  ever  been 
further  than   Islington." 

"I  was  in  Paris  once  some  years  back — on  business,"  Charlie 
remarked.  "I  think  Paris  is  a  knockout,  as  towns  go.  Not 
but  what  I  like  London  better.  Only  you  see  more  life  in 
Paris,"  and  he  relapsed  into  silence,  until  finally  Mr.  Tim- 
pany said  he  must  be  going. 

"Who's  he?"  demanded  Mr.  Raeburn,  when  his  wife  came 
back  from  escorting  her  visitor  to  the  door. 

"I  told  you  once — a  friend  of  father's." 

"Ikey  sort  of  a  bloke.  He  hasn't  made  a  mistake  coming 
here,  has  he?  I  thought  it  was  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  when 
I  see  him  sitting  there." 

"You  are  an  ignorant  man,"  declared  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "Don't 
you  know  a  gentleman  when  you  see  one?  Even  if  you  have 
lost  your  own  shop  and  got  to  go  to  work  every  morning  like  a 
common  navvy,  you  can  tell  a  gentleman  still." 

"Are  you  bringing  in  any  more  dukes  or  markisses  home  to 
tea?"  asked  Charlie.  "Because  let  me  know  next  time  and  I'll 
put  on  a  clean  pair  of  socks." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  did  not  bring  any  more  dukes  or  marquises 
home  to  tea;  but  Mr.  Timpany  came  very  often,  and  Charlie 
took  to  returning  from  work  very  punctually,  and,  though  he 
was  always  very  polite  to  Mr.  Timpany  when  he  was  there, 
he  was  very  rude  indeed  about  him  when  he  was  gone,  and 
Jenny  used  to  think  how  funny  it  was  to  wait  for  Mr.  Tim- 
pany's  departure  before  he  began  to  make  a  fuss. 


Pretty  Apples  in  Eden  45 

Vaguely  she  felt  her  father  w.is  afraid  to  say  much.  She 
could  understand  his  fear,  because  Mr.  Timpany  was  very 
large  and  strong,  so  large  and  strong  that  even  her  mother 
spoke  gently  and  always  seemed  anxious  to  please  him.  And 
looking  at  the  pair  side  by  side,  her  father  appeared  quite 
small — her  father  whom  she  had  long  regarded  as  largeness 
personified. 

One  day  Jenny  came  home  late  from  school  and  found  her 
parents  in  the  middle  of  a  furious  argument. 

"I  ar'n't  going  to  have  him  here,"  Charlie  was  saying,  "not 
no  more,  not  again,  the  dirty  hound!" 

"You  dare  say  that,  you  vulgar  beast." 

"I  shall  say  just  whatever  I  please.  You're  struck  on  him, 
that's  what  you  are,  30U  soft  idiot." 

"I'm  no  such  thing,"  declared  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "Nice  thing 
that  a  friend  of  father's  can't  come  and  have  a  cup  of  tea 
without  your  carrying  on  like  a  mad  thing." 

"Not  so  much  'cup  of  tea,'  Mrs.  Raeburn.  It's  not  the 
tea  I  minds.     It's  while  the  kettle's  boiling  as  I  objects  to." 

"You're  drunk,"  said  the  wife  scornfullw 

"And  it's  lucky  I  am  drunk.     You're  enoiifM  to  make 

a  fellow  drunk  with  your  la-di-da  behavior.     V.'r.y,  God  help 
me,   Florrie,   you've   been  powdering  your  face.     Let  me  get 

hold   of    the   .      I'll   learn  him   to    come   mucking   round 

another  man's  wife." 

On  the  very  next  day  Mr.  Timpany  came  to  tea  for  the 
last  time.  Possibly  Mrs.  Raeburn  had  told  her  husband  it 
was  to  be  the  last  time,  for  he  did  not  put  in  an  appearance. 
Ruby  had  gone  out  by  permission.  May  was  secured  by  a 
fortified  nursing-chair.  Alfie  was  away  on  some  twilight 
adventure  of  bells  and  string.  Edie  was  immerged  in  a 
neighboring  basement  with  two  friends,  a  plate  of  jam,  and 
the  cordial  teasing  of  the  friends'  brother,  young  Bert;  and 
Jenny,  urged  on  by  a  passionate  inquisitiveness,  crept  along 
the  passage  and   listened   to   the   follov.'ing   conversation: 

"You're  wasted  here,  Flo,  wasted — a  fine   woman  like  \ou 


46  Carnival 

is  absolutely  wasted.  Why  won't  you  come  away  with  me? 
Come  away  to-night,  I'll  always  be  good  to  you." 

"The  children,"   said  their  mother. 

"They'll  get  on  all  right  by  themselves.  Bring  the  little 
one — what's  her  name,  with  fair  hair  and   dark  eyes?" 

"Jenny." 

"Yes,  Jenny.     Bring  her  with  you.     I  don't  mind." 

"It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  her.     She'd  never  have  a  chance." 

"Rubbish!  She'd  have  more  chance  in  a  cosy  little  house 
of  your  own  than  stuck  in  this  rat's  hole.  You'd  have  a 
slap-up  time,  Flo.  A  nice  little  Ralli  cart,  if  you're  fond 
of  horses,  and — oh,  come  along,  come  now.     I  want  you." 

'No;  I've  fixed  myself  up.  I  was  done  with  life  when  I 
married  Charlie,  and  I'm  fixed  up." 

"You're  in  a  cage  here,"  he  argued. 

"Yes;  but  I've  got  my  nest  in  it,"  she  said. 

"Then  it's  good-bj^e?" 

"Good-bye." 

"I'm  damned  if  I  can  understand  why  you  won't  come. 
I'd  be  jolly  good  to  you." 

"Good-bye." 

'"'You're  a  cold  woman,  aren't  you?" 

"Am  I?" 

"I  think  you  are." 

"It  doesn't  always  do  to  show  one's  feelings." 

"You're  a  regular  icicle." 

"Perhaps,"  whispered  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

Jenny  stole  back  to  the  kitchen  greatly  puzzled.  Whether 
the  florid  Mr.  Timpany  kissed  Mrs.  Raeburn  before  he  went 
out  to  look  for  the  hansom  cab  that  was  to  jingle  him  out  of 
her  life,  I  do  not  know;  but  she  waved  to  him  once  as  she 
saw  him  look  round  under  a  lamp  post,  for  Jenny  had  crept 
back  and  was  standing  beside  her  when  she  did  so. 

"You  come  on  in,  you  naughty  girl,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn, 
drowning  love  in  a  copper  bubbling  with  clothes. 

"Would  you  like  that  man  better  than  father?"  Jenny  in- 


Pretty  Apples  i/i  Eden  47 

quired  presently,  pausing  in  the  erection  of  a  tower  of  bricks 
for  the  benefit  of  May,  who  watched  with  somber  eyes 
the  quivering  feat  of  architecture. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn  sha.-ply. 

"Would  you  like  father  to  go  away  and  never,  never  come 
back  here  along  of  us  ever  again  and  always  have  that  man?" 

"Of  course,  I  shouldn't,  you  silly  child." 

"I   would." 

"You  would?" 

"Yes,"  said  Jenny;  "he  smelt  nice." 

"Ah,  miss,  when  one's  married,  one's  married." 

"Could  I  be  married?" 

"When  you  grow  up.     Of  course." 

"Could  I  have  little  boys  and  girls?" 

"Of  course  you  could  if  you  were  married." 

"Could   I  have  lots  and  lots?" 

"More  than  you  bargain  for,  I  daresay,"  declared  her 
mother. 

"Did  you  marry  to  have  a  little  girl  like  me?" 

"Perhaps." 

Encouraged  by  her  mother's  unusual  amenity  to  questions, 
Jenny  went  on : 

"Did  you  really,  though?" 

"For  that  and  other  reasons." 

"Were  you  glad  when  you  saw  me  first?" 

"Very  glad." 

"Did  I  come  in  by  the  door?" 

"Yes." 

"Who  brought  me?" 

"The  doctor." 

"Did  he  ring  the  bell?" 

"Yes." 

"Did  father  know  I  was  coming?" 

"Yes." 

"Was   I    a   present   from    father?" 

"Yes." 


+8 


Carnival 


"Would  you  like  that  gentleman  to  give  you  a  present?" 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Would  you  like  him  to  give  you  a  li'l'  girl  like  me?" 

"Not  at  all;  and  you  stop  asking  questions,  Mrs.  Chatter." 

Her  mother  was  suddenly  aware  of  Jenny's  cross-examina- 
tions, which  she  had  been  answering  mechanically  with 
thoughts  far  away  with  a  florid  man  in  a  jingling  hansom  cab. 
Jenny  was  conscious  of  her  dreaming  and  knew  in  her  sly 
baby  heart  that  her  mother  was  in  a  weak  mood.  But  it  was 
too  good  to  last  long  enough  for  Jenny  to  find  out  all  she 
wanted  to   know. 

"Why  don't  you  send  father  away  and  have  that  gentleman 
as  a  lodger?" 

"I  told  you  once;  don't  keep  on." 

"But  why  don't  you?" 

"Because  I  don't  want  to." 

In  bed  that  night  Jenny  lay  awake  and  tried  to  understand 
the  conversation  in  the  parlor.  At  present  her  intelligence 
could  only  grasp  effect.  Analysis  had  not  yet  entered  her 
mind. 

She  saw,  in  pictures  on  the  ceiling,  her  mother  and  the  rich 
strange  gentleman.  She  saw  her  father  watching.  She  saw 
them  all  three  as  primitive  folks  see  tragedies,  dimly  aware 
of  great  events,  but  \,  'werless  to  extract  any  logical  sequence. 
Lying  awake,  she  planned  pleasant  surprises,  planned  to  bring 
back  Mr.  Timpany  and  banish  her  father.  It  was  like  the 
dreams  of  Christmas  time,  when  one  lay  awake  and  thought 
of  presents.  She  remembered  how  pleased  her  mother  had 
professed  herself  by  the  gift  of  a  thimble  achieved  on  Jenny's 
side  by  a  great  parsimony  in  sweets.  The  gentleman  had 
offered  a  cosy  house.  At  once  she  visualized  it  with  lights  in 
every  window  and  the  delicious  smell  that  is  wafted  up  from 
the  gratings  of  bakers'  shops.  But  what  was  a  Ralli  cart? 
Something  to  do  with  riding?  And  Jenny  was  to  come,  too, 
and  share  in  all  this.  He  had  said  so  distinctly.  If  he  gave 
mother  a  house,  why  should  he  not  give  her  a  doll's  house 


Pretty  Apples  in  Eden  49 

such  as  Edie  boasted  of  in  the  house  of  a  friend,  such  as  Edie 
had  promised  to  show  her  some  day.  She  began  to  feel  a 
budding  resentment  against  her  mother  for  saying  "No"  to  all 
these  delights,  a  resentment  comparable  with  her  emotions 
not  so  long  ago  when  her  mother  refused  to  let  her  go  for 
a  ride  on  an  omnibus  with   Mr.  Vergoe. 

Good  things  came  along  very  seldom,  and  when  they  did 
come,  grown-up  people  always  spoiled  them.  Life,  as  Jenny 
lay  awake,  seemed  made  up  of  small  repressions.  Life  was  a 
series  of  hopes  held  out  and  baffled  desires,  of  unjust  disap- 
pointments and  aspirations  unreasonably  neglected.  She  lay 
there,  a  mite  in  flowing  time,  sensible  only  of  having  no  free 
will. 

Why  couldn't  she  grow  up  all  of  a  sudden  and  do  as  she 
liked?  But  then  grown-up  people,  whom  she  always  regarded 
as  entirely  at  liberty,  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  do  as  they 
liked.  Her  mother  had  said,  "No,  thank  you,"  to  a  cosy 
house,  just  as  she  was  taught  to  say,  "No,  thank  you,"  to 
old  gentlemen  who  offered  her  pennies  to  turn  somersaults 
over  railings — surely  a  harmless  way  of  getting  money.  But 
her  mother  had  not  wanted  to  say  "No,  thank  you."  That 
Jenny  recognized  as  a  fact,  although,  if  she  had  been  asked 
why,  she  would  have  had   nothing  approaching  a  reason. 

"I  will  do  as  I  like,"  Jenny  vowed  to  herself.  "I  will,  I 
will.  I  won't  be  told."  Here  she  bit  the  sheet  in  rage  at  her 
powerlessness.  Desire  for  action  was  stirring  strongly  in  her 
now.  "Why  can't  I  grow  up  all  at  once?  Why  must  I  be  a 
little  girl?  Why  can't  I  be  like  a  kitten?"  Kittens  had  be- 
come cats  within  Jenny's  experience. 

"I  will  be  disobedient.  I  will  be  disobedient.  I  won't  be 
stopped."  Suddenly  a  curious  sensation  seized  her  of  not  be- 
ing there  at  all.  She  bit  the  bedclothes  again.  Then  she  sat 
up  in  bed  and  looked  at  her  petticoats  hanging  over  the  chair. 
She  was  there,  after  all,  and  she  fell  asleep  with  wilful  ambi- 
tions dancing  lightly  through  the  gay  simplicities  of  her  child's 
brain,   and,   as  she  lay  there  with  tightly  closed,   determined 


5  o  Carnival 

lips,  her  mother  with  shaded  candle  looked  down  at  her  and 
wondered  whether,  after  all,  she  and  Jenny  would  not  have 
been  better  off  under  the  rich-voiced,  cigar-haunted  protection 
of  Mr.  Timpany. 

And  then  Mrs.  Raeburn  went  to  bed  and  fell  asleep  to  the 
snoring  of  Charlie,  just  as  truly  unsatisfied  as  most  of  the 
women  in  this  world. 

Only  Charlie  was  all  right.  He  had  spent  a  royal  evening 
in  bragging  to  a  circle  of  pipe-armed  friends  of  his  firmness 
and  virility  at  a  moment  of  conjugal  stress. 

And  outside  the  cold  January  stars  were  reflected  in  the 
puddles  of  Hagworth  Street. 


chapter  VI:  Shepherd' s  Calendar 

IT  was  unlikely  that  Jenny's  dancing  could  always  be  kept 
a  secret.  The  day  came  at  last  when  her  mother,  in 
passing  the  playground  of  the  school,  looked  over  the 
railings  and  saw  her  daughter's  legs  above  a  semicircle  of 
applauding  children.  Mrs.  Raeburn  was  more  than  shocked: 
she  was  profoundly  alarmed.  The  visit  of  the  aunts  rose  up 
before  her  like  a  ghost  from  the  heart  of  forgotten  years. 
They  had  faded  into  a  gradual  and  secure  insignificance,  only 
momentarily  displaced  by  the  death  of  Aunt  Fanny.  But 
the  other  two  lived  on  in  Carminia  House  like  skeletons  of 
an  outraged  morality. 

Something  must  be  done  about  this  dancing  craze.  Some- 
thing must  be  done  to  check  the  first  signs  of  a  prophecy  ful- 
filled. She  thought  of  Barnsbury;  but  Mrs.  Purkiss  had 
now  two  pasty-faced  bo3's  of  her  own,  and  was  no  longer 
willing  to  act  as  deputy-mother  to  the  children  of  her  sister. 
Something  must   certainly   be   done   about   Jenny's   wilfulness, 

"How  dare  you  go  making  such  an  exhibition  of  yourself?" 
she  demanded,  when  Jenny  came  home.  "How  dare  you,  you 
naughty  girl?" 

Jenny  made  no  reply  but  an  obstinate  frown. 

"You  dare  sulk  and  I'll  give  you  a  good  whipping." 

The  teacher  was  written  to;  was  warned  of  Jenny's  wild 
inclinations.  The  teacher,  a  fish-like  woman  in  a  plaid  skirt, 
remonstrated  with  her  pupil. 

"Nice  little  girls,"  she  asserted  "don't  kick  their  legs  up 
in  the  air." 

51 


5  2  Carnival 

The  class  was  forbidden  to  encourage  the  dancer;  a  moun- 
tain was  made  of  a  molehill;  Jenny  was  raised  to  the  giddy 
pinnacle  of  heroism.  She  wore  about  her  the  blazing  glories 
of  a  martyr ;  she  began  to  be  conscious  of  possessing  an  ex- 
ceptional personality,  for  there  had  never  been  such  a  fuss  over 
any  other  girl's  misdemeanor.  She  began  to  feel  more  acutely 
the  injustice  of  grown-up  repression.  She  tried  defiance  and 
danced  again  in  the  playground,  but  learned  that  humanity's 
prime  characteristic  is  cowardice;  perceived,  with  Aristotle, 
that  man  is  a  political  animal,  a  hunter  in  packs.  She  thought 
the  school  would  support  her  justifiable  rebellion,  but,  alas, 
the  school  deserted  her.  Heroine  she  might  be  in  corner  con- 
ferences. Heroine  she  might  be  in  linked  promenades;  but 
when  her  feelings  were  crystallized  in  action,  the  other  girls 
thought  of  themselves.  They  applauded  her  intentions,  but 
shrank  from  the  prominence  of  the  visible  result.  Jenny 
abandoned  society.  The  germ  of  cynicism  was  planted  in  her 
soul.  She  came  to  despise  her  fellows.  In  scarlet  cloak  she 
traveled  solitary  to  school,  and  hated  everybody. 

The  immediate  and  obvious  result  of  this  self-imposed  iso- 
lation was  her  heightened  importance  in  the  eyes  of  boys. 
One  by  one  they  approached  her  with  offers  of  escort,  with 
tribute  from  sticky  pockets.  Little  by  little  she  became 
attached  to  their  top-spinning,  marble-flicking  journeys  to  and 
from  school ;  gradually  she  was  admitted  to  the  more  intimate 
fellowship  of  outlawry.  She  found  that,  in  association  with 
boys,  she  could  prosecute  her  quarrel  with  the  world.  With 
them  she  wandered  far  afield  from  Hagworth  Street;  with 
them  she  tripped  along  on  many  a  marauding  expedition.  For 
them  she  acted  as  decoy,  as  scout  against  policemen.  With 
them  she  rang  the  bells  of  half  a  street  at  a  run.  With  them 
she  broke  the  windows  of  empty  houses;  climbed  ladders  and 
explored  roofs  and  manipulated  halfpennies  stuck  with  wax  to 
the  paving-stones.  She  was  queen  of  the  robbers'  camp  on  a 
tin-sprinkled  waste  of  building-land.  She  acquired  a  fine  con- 
tempt of  girls,  and  wished  more  than  ever  she  had  been  fortu- 


Shepherd's  Calendar  53 

nate  enough  to  be  born  a  boy.  Even  Alfie  condescended  not 
merely  to  take  notice  of  her,  but  also  sometimes  to  make  use 
of  her  activity.  She  looked  back  with  wonder  to  the  time 
when  she  had  regarded  her  brother  with  a  shrinking  distaste. 
He  became  her  standard  of  behavior.  She  saw  his  point  of 
view  when  nobody  else  could,  as  on  the  occasion  when  he 
asked  Edie  if  she  dared  him  to  hit  her  on  the  head  with  the 
bar  of  iron  he  was  swinging,  and  when  Edie,  having  in  duty 
bound  dared,  found  herself  with  a  large  cut  on  the  forehead. 
Alfie,  finding  other  boys  admired  it,  encouraged  her  dancing; 
and  they  used  to  flock  round  the  organs  while  Jenny  learned 
step-dancing  from  big,  rough  girls  who  were  always  to  be 
found  in  the  middle  of  the  music. 

One  day,  however,  Mrs.  Raeburn  and  Mrs.  Purkiss,  com- 
ing back  together  from  a  spring  hat  foray,  walked  right  into 
one  of  Jenny's  performances.  Mrs.  Raeburn  might  ha\e  en- 
dured the  shame  of  it  alone,  but  the  company  of  her  sister 
upset  her  power  of  dealing  with  an  awkward  situation.  If 
in  the  past  she  had  been  inclined  to  compare  Percy  and 
Claude,  her  pasty-faced  nephews,  unfavorably  with  her  own 
children,  on  the  present  occasion  their  mother  drained  the  cup 
of  revenge  to  the  dregs. 

With  Jenny  between  them,  the  two  sisters  walked  back  to 
Hagworth  Street. 

"It  isn't  as  if  it  was  just  showing  her  legs,"  said  Mrs. 
Purkiss.  "That's  bad  enough,  but  I  happened  to  notice  she 
had  a  hole  in  her  stocking.    .    .    . 

"And  those  great,  common  girls  she  was  hollering  with. 
Wherever  on  earth  can  she  have  picked  up  with  them?  Some 
of  Charlie's  friends,  I  suppose.    .    .    . 

"It  seems  funny  that  Alfie  shouldn't  have  more  shame 
than  go  letting  his  sister  make  such  a  sight  of  herself,  but 
there,  I  suppose  Alfie  takes  after  his  father.    .    .    . 

"All  I'm  thankful  for  is  that  Bill  wasn't  with  us,  he  being 
a  man  as  anything  like  that  upsets  for  a  week.  He  never  did 
have  what  you  might  call  a  good  liver,  and  anything  unpleas- 


5  4  Carnival 

ant  turns  his  bile  all  the  wrong  way.  Only  last  week,  when 
Miss  Knibbs,  our  first  assistant,  sent  an  outsize  in  combina- 
tions to  a  customer  who's  very  particular  about  any  remark 
being  passed  about  her  stoutness,  Bill  was  sick  half  of  the 
night.    .    .    . 

"I  can't  think  why  you  don't  send  her  away  to  Carrie's. 
The  country  would  do  her  good,  and  Carrie's  got  no  children 
of  her  own.  I'd  like  to  have  her  myself,  only  I'm  afraid  she'd 
be  such  a  bad  example  to  Percy  and  Claude." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  was  silent.  Vulnerable  through  Jenny's 
lapse  from  modesty,  she  had  no  sting  for  her  nephews. 

Finally  it  was  settled  that  Jenny  should  spend  a  year  with 
Mrs.  Threadgale  at  Galton.  It  was  laid  on  the  shoulders 
of  Hampshire  to  curb  her  naughtiness.  It  remained  to  be 
seen  how  far  country  sights  and  sounds  would  civilize  her 
rudeness. 

Having  made  up  her  mind  to  banish  the  child,  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn began  at  once  to  regret  the  decision.  With  all  her  dis- 
obedience, Jenny  was  still  the  favorite.  "She  was  such  a 
character,"  in  her  mother's  words;  and  her  gay,  dark  eyes 
and  silvery  curls  would  be  missed  from  Hagworth  Street. 
But  the  day  of  departure  came  along.  A  four-wheeler  threw 
a  shadow  on  the  door.  There  were  kisses  and  handkerchiefs 
and  last  injunctions  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  separation. 
Jenny  was  bundled  in.     Mrs.  Raeburn  followed. 

"Now  mind.  Ruby,"  cried  the  latter  from  the  window, 
"don't  you  let  May  get  putting  nothing  in  her  mouth,  and 
see  Mr.  Raeburn  has  his  tea  comfortable,  and,  Alfie,  you 
dare  misbehave  while  I'm  away.     Good-bye,  all." 

At  last  the  train  drew  up  at  Galton  along  a  gray  gravel 
platform  that  smelt  fresh  and  flowery  after  the  railway  car- 
riage. There  was  lilac  in  bloom  and  red  hawthorn,  and  a 
pile  of  tin  trunks,  and  when  the  train  had  puffed  on,  Jenny 
could  hear  birdsong  everywhere. 

While  the  two  sisters  embraced,  the  little  girl  surveyed  her 


Shepherd's  Calendar  55 

new  aunt.  She  was  more  like  her  mother  than  Aunt  Mabel. 
Nicer  altogether  than  Aunt  Mabel,  though  she  disliked  the 
flavor  of  veil   that  was  mingled  with  the  kisses  of  welcome. 

"They'll  wheel  the  luggage  along  on  a  barrow,"  said  Aunt 
Caroline.     "It's  not  far  where  we  live." 

They  turned  into  the  wide  country  street  with  its  amber 
sunlight  and  sound  of  footsteps,  and  very  soon  arrived  before 
the  shop  of  James  Threadgale,  Draper  and  Haberdasher. 
Jenny  hoped  they  would  go  in  through  the  shop  itself,  but 
Mrs.  Threadgale  opened  a  door  at  the  side  and  took  them 
upstairs  to  a  big  airy  parlor  that  seemed  to  Jenny's  first 
glance  all  sunbeams  and  lace.  Having  been  afforded  a 
glimpse  of  Paradise,  they  were  taken  downstairs  again  into 
the  back  parlor,  which  would  have  been  very  dull  had  it 
not  looked  out  on  to  a  green  garden  sloping  down  to  a  small 
stream. 

Uncle  James,  with  pale,  square  face  and  quiet  voice,  came 
in  from  the  shop  to  greet  them.  Jenny  thought  he  talked 
funny  with  his  broad  Hampshire  vowels.  Ethel,  the  maid, 
came  in,  too,  with  her  peach-bloom  cheeks  and  creamy  neck 
and  dewy  crimson  mouth.  Jenny  compared  her  with  "our 
Rube,"  greatly  to  our  Rube's  disadvantage. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  stayed  a  week,  and  Jenny  said  good-bye  with- 
out any  feeling  of  home-sickness.  She  liked  her  new  uncle 
and  aunt.  There  were  no  pasty-faced  cousins,  and  Ethel  was 
very  nice.  She  was  not  sent  to  the  National  School.  Such  a 
course  would  have  been  derogatory  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thread- 
gale's  social  position.  So  she  went  to  a  funny  old  school  at 
the  top  of  the  town  kept  by  an  old  lady  called  Miss  Wilber- 
force — a  dear  old  lady  with  white  caps  and  pale  blue  ribbons 
and  a  big  pair  of  tortoise-shell  spectacles.  The  school  was  a 
little  gray  house  with  three  gables  and  diamond  lattices  and  a 
door  studded  with  great  nails  over  which  was  an  inscription 
that  said,  "Mrs.  Wilberforce's  School,   1828." 

In  the  class-room  on  one  side  was  heard  a  perpetual  hum- 
ming of  bees  among  the  wallflowers  in  the  front  garden,  and 


56 


Carnival 


through  the  windows  on  the  far  side,  which  looked  away  over 
the  open  country,  floated  the  distant  tinkle  of  sheep-bells.  All 
r.long  one  side  hung  rows  of  cloaks  and  hats,  and  all  over  the 
other  walls  hung  pictures  of  sheep  and  cows  and  dogs  and 
angels  and  turnips  and  wheat  and  barley  and  Negroes  and  Red 
Indians:  there  were  also  bunches  of  dried  grasses  and  glass 
cases  full  of  butterflies  and  birds'  eggs  and  fossils,  and  along 
the  window-sills  were  pots  of  geraniums.  On  her  desk  Miss 
Wilberforce  had  an  enormous  cane,  which  she  never  used, 
and  a  bowl  of  bluebells  or  wild  flowers  of  the  season  and  a 
big  ink-horn  and  quill  pens  and  books  and  papers  which  flut- 
tered about  the  room  on  a  windy  day.  There  was  a  dunce's 
stool  with  a  fool's-cap  beside  it,  and  a  blackboard  full  of  the 
simplest  little  addition  sums.  All  the  children's  desks  were 
chipped  and  carved  and  inked  with  the  initials  of  bygone 
scholars,  and  all  the  forms  were  slippery  with  the  fidgetings 
of  innumerable  little  girls.  About  the  air  of  the  warm, 
murmurous  schoolroom  hung  the  traditions  of  a  dead  system 
of  education. 

Jenny  learned  to  darn  and  sew ;  to  recite  Cowper's  "Winter 
Walk"  after  Miss  Wilberforce,  who  was  never  called 
"teacher,"  but  always  "ma'am";  to  deliver  trite  observations 
upon  the  nature  of  common  animals,  such  as  "The  dog  is  a 
sagacious  beast,"  "The  sheep  is  the  friend  of  man,"  and  to 
acquire  a  slight  acquaintance  with  uncommon  animals  such 
as  the  quagga,  the  yak,  and  the  ichneumon,  because  they  won 
through  their  initials  an  undeserved  prominence  in  the  alpha- 
bet. She  learned  that  Roman  Catholics  worshiped  images 
and,  incidentally,  the  toe  of  the  Pope,  and  wondered  vaguely 
if  the  latter  were  a  dancer.  She  was  told  homely  tales 
about  Samuel  and  Elijah.  She  was  given  a  glazed  Bible  which 
smelt  of  oil-cloth,  and  advised  to  read  it  every  morning  and 
every  evening  without  any  selection  of  suitable  passages.  She 
learned  a  hymn  called  "Now  the  day  is  over,"  which  always 
produced  an  emotion  of  exquisite  melancholy.  She  was 
awarded  a  diminutive  plot  of  ground  and  given  a  penny  packet 


Shepherd's  Calendar  57 

of  nasturtium  seeds  to  sow,  but,  being  told  by  another  girl 
that  they  were  good  to  eat,  she  ate  them  instead,  and  her 
garden  was  a  failure. 

There  were  delightful  half-holiday  rambles  over  the  country- 
side, when  she,  still  in  her  scarlet  serge,  and  half  a  dozen 
girls  and  boys  danced  along  the  lanes  picking  flowers  and 
playing  games  with  chanted  refrains  like  "Green  Gravel"  and 
"Queen  of  Barbary."  She  made  friends  with  farmers'  lads, 
and  learned  to  climb  trees  and  call  poultry  and  find  ducks' 
eggs.  Hay-making  time  came  on,  when  she  was  allowed  to 
ride  on  the  great  swinging  loads  right  into  the  setting  sun,  it 
seemed.  She  used  to  lie  on  her  back,  lulled  by  the  sounds 
of  eventide,  and  watch  the  midges  glinting  on  the  air  of  a 
golden  world. 

She  slept  in  a  funny  little  flowery  room  next  to  her  uncle 
and  aunt,  and  she  used  to  lie  awake  in  the  slow  summer  twi- 
lights sniffing  in  the  delicious  odor  of  pinks  in  full  bloom 
below  her  window.  Sometimes  she  would  lean  out  of  the 
window  and  weave  fancies  round  the  bubbling  stream  beyond 
the  grass  till  the  moon  came  up  from  behind  a  hop-garden  and 
threw  tree-shadows  all  over  the  room.  Below  her  sill  she 
could  pick  great  crimson  roses  that  looked  like  bunches  of 
black  velvet  in  the  moonlight,  and  in  the  morning  she  used 
to  suck  the  honey  from  the  sweet,  starry  flowers  of  the  jas- 
mine that  flung  its  green  fountains  over  the  kitchen  porch. 

Summer  went  on ;  the  hay  was  cut,  and  in  the  swimming 
July  heat  she  used  to  play  in  the  meadows  till  her  face  grew 
freckled  as  the  inside  of  a  cowslip.  Now  was  the  time  when 
she  could  wear  foxglove  blooms  on  every  finger.  Now  was 
the  time  to  watch  the  rabbits  scampering  by  the  wood's  edge 
in  the  warm  dusk.  The  corn  turned  golden,  and  there  were 
expeditions  for  wild  raspberries.  The  corn  was  cut,  and 
blackberry  time  arrived,  bringing  her  mother,  who  was  pleased 
to  see  how  well  Jenny  looked  and  went  back  to  Hagworth 
Street  with   a  great  bunch  of  fat  purple  dahlias. 

In  October  there  was  nutting — best  of  all  the  new  delights. 


S8 


Carnival 


perhaps — when  she  wandered  through  the  hazel  coppices  and 
shook  the  smooth  boughs  until  the  ripe  nuts  pattered  down 
on  the  damp,  woodland  earth.  Nutting  was  no  roadside  ad- 
venture. She  really  penetrated  into  the  heart  of  the  woods 
and  with  her  companions  would  peep  out  half-affrighted  by 
the  lips  of  the  October  leaves  along  the  glades,  half-afraid  of 
the  giant  beeches  with  their  bare  gray  branches  twisted  to  the 
likeness  of  faces  and  figures.  She  and  her  playmates  would 
peep  out  from  the  hazel  coppice  and  dart  across  the  mossy 
way  out  of  the  keeper's  eye,  and  lose  themselves  in  the  dense 
covert  and  point  with  breathless  whisper  to  a  squirrel  or  scur- 
rying dormouse.  Home  again  in  the  silvery  mists  or  moaning 
winds,  home  again  with  bags  of  nuts  slung  across  shoul- 
ders, to  await  the  long  winter  evenings  and  fireside  pleas- 
ures. 

Jenny  was .  allowed  to  celebrate  her  ninth  birthday  by  a 
glorious  tea-party  in  the  kitchen,  when  little  girls  in  clean 
pinafores  and  little  boys  in  clean  collars  stumped  along  the 
flagged  passage  and  sat  down  to  tea  and  munched  buns  and 
presented  Jenny  with  dolls'  tea-services  and  pop-guns  and 
Michaelmas  daisies  with  stalks  warm  from  the  tight  clasp  of 
warm  hands. 

She  grew  to  love  her  Aunt  Carrie  and  Uncle  James  with 
the  quiet  voice  and  thin,  damp  hair. 

Winter  went  by  to  the  ticking  of  clocks  and  patter  of  rain. 
But  there  was  snow  after  Christmas  and  uproarious  snow- 
balling and  slides  in  Gal  ton  High  Street.  There  was  always 
a  fine  crackling  fire  in  the  kitchen,  and  a  sleek  tabby  cat,  and 
copper  kettles  singing  on  the  hob.  There  was  Ethel's  love 
afifair  with  the  grocer's  assistant  to  talk  and  giggle  over  amid 
the  tinkle  and  clatter  of  washing  up  the  tea-things. 

And  then  in  March  Mrs.  Threadgale  caught  cold  and  died 
quite  suddenly;  and  Jenny  put  some  white  violets  on  her 
grave  and  wore  a  black  dress  and  went  home  to  Islington. 

The  effect  of  this  wonderful  visit  was  not  much  more 
permanent  than  the  surprise  of  a  new  picture-book.     Galton 


Shepherd's  Calendar  59 

had  meant  not  so  much  a  succession  of  revelations  as  a  volley 
of  sensations.  She  was  sad  at  leaving  the  country ;  she  missed 
the  affection  of  her  uncle  and  aunt.  She  missed  the  easy 
sway  she  had  wielded  over  everybody  at  Galton.  But  she 
had  very  little  experience  to  carry  back  to  Hagworth  Street. 
One  would  like  to  say  she  carried  the  memory  of  that  childish 
wondertime  right  through  her  restless  life,  but,  actually,  she 
never  remembered  much  about  it.  It  very  soon  became  merely 
a  vague  interval  between  two  long  similarities  of  existence, 
like  a  break  in  a  row  of  houses  that  does  not  admit  one  to 
anything  more  than  an  added  space  of  sky.  She  never  com- 
muned with  elves,  or,  like  young  Blake,  saw  God's  forehead 
pressed  against  the  windows-pane.  Jenny  was  no  mystic  of 
nature,  and  the  roar  of  humanity  would  always  move  her 
more  than  the  singing  of  waves  and  forest  leaves. 

Her  great  hold  upon  life  was  the  desire  of  dancing.  This 
she  had  fostered  on  many  a  level  stretch  of  sward,  with  daisy 
chains  hung  all  about  her.  She  had  danced  with  damson- 
stained  mouth  like  a  young  Bacchante.  She  had  danced  while 
her  companions  made  arches  and  hoops  of  slender  willow- 
stems.  She  had  danced  the  moon  up  and  the  sun  down ; 
and  once,  when  the  summer  dusk  was  like  wine  cooled  by 
woodland  airs,  when  a  nightingale  throbbed  in  every  road- 
side tree  and  glow-worms  spangled  the  grass,  she  had  taken 
a  spray  of  eglantine  and  led  an  inspired  band  of  childish 
revelers  down  into  the  twinkling  lamplight  of  Galton. 

Yet  this  wonderful  year  became  a  date  in  her  chronicle 
chiefly  because  age  or  sunlight  or  wind  tarnished  her  silver 
curls  to  that  uncertain  tint  which  is,  unjustly  to  mice,  always 
called  mouse-colored ;  so  that  her  arrival  at  Number  Seventeen 
was  greeted   by   a  chorus  of  disapproval. 

"Good  gracious!"  cried  Mrs.  Raeburn,  when  she  saw  her. 
"Will  you  only  look  at  her  hair?" 

"What's  gone  with  it?"  asked  Jenny. 

"Why,  what  a  terrible  color.  No  color  at  all,  you  might 
say.     I  feel  quite  disgusted." 


6  o  Carnival 

"Perhaps  she  won't  be  quite  such  a  Miss  Vain  now,"  Ruby 
put  in. 

Jenny  was  discouraged.  The  London  spring  was  trying 
after  Galton,  and  one  day,  a  month  or  two  after  she  came 
back,  she  felt  horribly  ill,  and  her  face  was  flushed. 

"The  child's  ill,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"111?  Nonsense!"  argued  Charlie.  "Why,  look  at  her 
color.  111?  Whoever  heard?  Never  saw  no  one  look  better 
in  my  life.     Look  how  bright  her  eyes  is." 

"You  ignorant  man!"  said  his  wife,  and  sent  for  the  doctor. 

The  doctor  said  it  was  scarlet  fever,  and  Jenny  was  taken 
away  in  blankets  to  the  hospital.  She  felt  afraid  at  first  in 
the  long,  quiet  w^ard  with  all  the  rows  of  nurses  and  palms 
and  thin  beds  from  which  heads  suddenly  popped  up. 

"Do  you  think  you'll  go  to  heaven  when  you  die?"  the 
charge-nurse  whispered  to  Jenny  as  she  tucked  her  in. 

"I  don't  care  where  I  go,"  said  Jenny;  "as  long  as  there 
isn't  no  castor-oil." 

As  she  lay  waiting  to  get  better  and  watched  the  lilac  buds 
breaking  into  flower  outside  the  big  windows,  she  could  not 
help  wishing  she  were  in  Galton  again,  although  in  a  way 
she  liked  the  peace  and  regularity  of  hospital  life.  It  amused 
her  to  have  breakfast  at  half-past  five  and  lunch  at  nine.  The 
latter  she  laughed  at  all  the  time  she  was  in  the  hospital. 
Her  convalescence  was  an  exceptionally  long  one,  but  she  had 
two  jolly  weeks  before  she  left,  when  she  could  run  about 
and  help  to  carry  the  meals  to  the  other  patients.  She  danced 
once  or  twice  then  for  the  benefit  of  the  ward  and  was  glad 
that  everybody  clapped  her  so  loudly.  She  cried  when  she 
left  in  August  to  go  home  to  her  family. 


Chapter  VII:    Ambition  JVales 

THE  great  event  came  about  because  Mrs.  Raeburn, 
in  return  for  similar  favors  in  the  past,  went  to 
superintend  the  behavior  of  pasty-faced  Claude  and 
Percy  so  that  her  sister  could  spend  a  fortnight  with  a  brother- 
in-law  lately  elected  to  the  Urban  Council  of  an  unimportant 
town  in  Suffolk.  So,  wMth  some  misgivings  on  the  side  of  his 
wife,  Charlie  was  left  in  charge  of  17  Hagworth  Street. 

One  day  Mr.  Vergoe  came  downstairs  to  ask  his  landlord 
if  he  would  let  Jenny  and  Alfie  and  Edie  accompany  him  to 
the  pantomime  of  "Aladdin"  at  the  Grand  Theater.  Charlie 
saw  no  harm  in  it,  and  the  party  was  arranged.  It  appeared 
that  Miss  Lilli  Vergoe  had  been  temporarily  released  from 
the  second  line  of  girls  at  the  Orient  Theater  of  Varieties  in 
order  to  make  one  of  a  quartette  of  acrobatic  dancers  in  the 
pantomime.  Under  the  circumstances,  her  grandfather  con- 
sidered himself  bound  to  attend  at  least  one  performance, 
although  he  felt  rather  like  a  mute  at  his  own  obsequies. 

It  was  a  clear  winter's  evening  when  they  set  out,  a  rosy- 
cheeked,  chattering,  skipping  party.  Mr.  Vergoe,  wrapped 
in  a  muffler  almost  as  wide  as  a  curtain,  walked  in  the  middle. 
Jenny  held  his  hand.  Edie  jigged  on  the  inside,  and  Alfie,  to 
whom  had  been  intrusted  the  great  responsibility  of  the  tickets, 
walked  along  the  extreme  edge  of  the  curb,  occasionally  jolting 
down  with  excitement  into  the  frozen  gutter.  They  hurried 
along  the  wide  raised  pavement  that  led  up  to  the  theater. 
They  hurried  past  the  golden  windows  of  shops  still  gay  with 
the  aftermath  of  Christmas.  They  hurried  faster  and  faster  tiU 

6i 


62  Carnival 

presently  the  great  front  of  the  theater  appeared  in  sight,  when 
they  all  huddled  together  for  a  wild  dash  across  the  crowded 
thoroughfare.  Ragged  boys  accosted  them,  trying  to  sell  old 
programmes.  Knowing  men  inquired  if  they  wanted  the 
shortest  way  to  the  pit. 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  Mr.  Vergoe  proudly.  "We  have 
seats  in  the  dress  circle." 

The  knowing  men  looked  very  respectful  and  moved  aside 
from  the  welded  plutocracy  of  Edie,  Alfie,  Jenny  and  Mr. 
Vergoe.  Fat  women  with  baskets  of  fat  oranges  tried  to 
tempt  them  by  offering  three  at  once,  but  Mr.  Vergoe  de- 
clined.    Oranges  would  not  be  polite  in  the  dress  circle. 

In  the  vestibule  Alfie  was  commanded  to  produce  the 
tickets.  There  was  a  terrible  moment  of  suspense  while  Alfie, 
nearly  as  crimson  as  the  plush  all  around  him,  dug  down  into 
one  pocket  after  another.  Were  the  tickets  lost?  Edie  and 
Jenny  looked  daggers.  No;  there  they  were:  Row  A,  num- 
bers 7,  8,  9,  and  lo.  "Upstairs,  please,"  said  a  magnificent 
gentleman  in  black  and  gold.  "This  way,  please,"  said  a 
fuzzy-haired  attendant.  The  children  walked  over  the  thick 
carpet  in  awed  silence.  A  glass  door  swung  open.  They  were 
in  the  auditorium  of  the  Grand  Theater,  Islington,  in  the  very 
front  row,  by  all  that  was  fortunate;  and,  having  bestowed 
their  hats  and  coats  beneath  the  elegant  and  comfortable  tip- 
up  chairs,  they  hung  over  the  red-plush  ledge  of  the  circle  and 
gazed  down  into  what  seemed  the  whole  of  the  popula- 
tion of  London.  The  orchestra  had  not  yet  come  in.  Down 
in  the  pit  the  people  were  laughing  and  talking.  Up  in  the 
gallery  they  were  laughing  and  talking.  Babies  were  crying; 
mothers  were  comforting  them.  Everybody  down  below  seemed 
to  be  eating  oranges  or  buns  or  chocolate.  Alfie  let  his  pro- 
gramme flutter  down,  and  Jenny  nearly  burst  into  tears  because 
she  thought  they  would  all  be  turned  out  of  the  theater. 

The  whole  of  the  vast  audience  was  there  for  enjoyment. 
Enjoyment  was  in  the  air  like  a  great  thrill  of  electricity. 
What  could  be  more  magnificent  than  the  huge  drop  curtain, 


Ambition  Wakes  63 


with  its  rich  landscape  and  lightly  clothed  inhabitants?  What 
could  be  more  exciting  than  the  entrance,  one  by  one,  of  the 
amazingly  self-possessed  musicians? 

The  orchestra  was  tuning  up.  The  conductor  appeared  to 
the  welcoming  taps  of  fiddle-bows.  One  breathless  moment  he 
held  aloft  his  baton  and  looked  round  at  his  attentive  com- 
pany, then  altogether  the  fiddles  and  the  drums  and  the  flutes 
and  the  cornets,  the  groaning  double-bass  and  the  'cello  and 
the  clarinets  and  the  funny  little  piccolo  and  the  big  bassoon 
and  the  complicated  French  horns  and  the  trombones  and  the 
triangle  (perhaps  the  best-enjoyed  instrument  of  all)  and  the 
stupendous  cymbals  started  off  with  the  overture  of  the  Christ- 
mas pantomime  of  the  Grand  Theater,  Islington. 

Could  it  be  borne,  this  enthusiastic  overture?  Was  it  not 
almost  too  much  for  children,  this  lilting  announcement  of 
mirth  and  beauty?  Would  not  Jenny  presently  fall  head- 
foremost into  the  pit?  Would  not  Alfie  be  bound  to 
break  the  seat  by  his  perpetual  leaps  into  the  air?  Would 
not  Edie  explode  in  her  anxiety  to  correct  Jenny,  devour 
bull's-e^es  and  sec  more  of  a  mysterious  figure  that  kept 
peering  through  a  little  square  hole  in  the  corner  of  the  pro- 
scenium ? 

The  orchestra  stopped  for  a  moment.  A  bell  had  rung, 
shrill  and  pregnant  with  great  events.  Green  lights  appeared, 
and  red  lights:  there  was  hardly  a  sound  in  the  house.  Was 
anything  the  matter? 

"They're  just  ringing  up,"  said  Mr.  Vergoe. 

Slowly  the  rich  landscape  and  lightly  clothed  inhabitants 
vanished  into  the  roof. 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Jenny. 

"Hush!"  whispered  Edie. 

"My  Gosh!"  said  Alfie. 

A  weird  melody  began.  Demons  leaped  maliciously  round 
a  caldron.  Green  demons  and  red  demons  danced  with  pitch- 
forks. The  caldron  bubbled  and  steamed.  There  was  a  crash 
from  the  cymbals.     A  figure  sprang  from  the  caldron,  alight- 


64 


Carnival 


ing  on  the  board  with  a  loud  "ha-ha."    Evil  deeds  were  afoot, 
and  desperate  dialogue  of  good  and  ill. 

The  scene  changed  to  a  Chinese  market-place.  There  were 
comic  policemen,  comic  laundrywomen.  There  was  the  Prin- 
cess Balroubadour  in  a  palanquin  more  beautiful  than  the  very 
best  lampshade  of  the  Hagworth  Street  parlor.  There  was 
the  splendidly  debonair  Aladdin.  There  was  the  excruciatingly 
funny  Widow  Twankey,  There  was  the  Emperor  with  bass 
voice  and  mustaches  trailing  to  the  ground  to  be  continually 
trodden  on  by  humorists  of  every  size  and  sort. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  relate  every  scene.  It  was  like 
existence  in  a  precious  stone,  so  much  sparkle  and  color  was 
everywhere.  The  cave  was  wonderful.  The  journey  to  the 
Enchanted  Palace  through  Cloudland  was  amazing.  Then 
there  were  gilded  tables,  heaped  with  gigantic  fruits,  that  rose 
from  the  very  ground  itself.  There  was  the  devilishly  cun- 
ning Abanazar.  There  were  songs  and  dances  and  tinsel  and 
movement  and  jingles  and  processions  and  laughter  and  gongs 
and  lanterns  and  painted  umbrellas  and  magic  doors  and  an 
exhaustingly  funny  bathing  scene  with  real  water.  There  was 
the  active  and  slippery  Genius  of  the  Lamp,  the  lithe  and  agile 
Genius  of  the  Ring,  who  ran  right  round  the  ledge  of  the 
circle  and  slid  down  a  golden  pillar  back  on  to  the  stage  amid 
thunders  of  applause. 

To  Jenny,  perhaps  the  most  real  excitement  of  all  was  the 
appearance  of  her  darling  Lilli,  first  in  gold  and  blue,  and  then 
in  white,  and  then  in  black,  and  finally  in  a  dress  that  must 
have  been  stolen  from  the  very  heart  of  a  rainbow,  such  scin- 
tillating streams  of  color  flickered  and  gleamed  and  radiated 
from  its  silken   folds. 

How  gloriously  golden  looked  her  hair,  how  splendidly 
crimson  her  lips,  how  nobly  brilliant  were  her  eyes.  And  how 
she  danced,  first  on  one  leg,  then  on  the  other;  then  upside 
down  and  inside  out,  and  over  one  girl  and  under  another. 
How  the  people  clapped  her  and  how  pleased  she  looked,  and 
how  Jenny  waved   to  her  till  Alfie  and  Edie  simultaneously 


Ambition  Wakes  65 

suppressed  such  an  uncontrolled  and  conspicuous  display  of 
feelings.  Then  there  was  the  transformation  scene,  which  actu- 
ally surpassed  all  that  had  gone  before,  with  its  bouquets  of 
giant  roses  turning  into  fairies,  with  its  clouds  and  lace  and 
golden  rocks  and  jewels  and  silver  trees  and  view  of  magic 
oceans  and  snowy  mountains  and  gaudy  birds. 

Suddenly  crimson  lights  flared.  There  was  a  jovial  shout 
from  somewhere,  and  "Here  we  are  again!"  cried  Joey,  as 
round  and  round  to  "Ring  a  ring  o'  roses"  galloped  Clown  and 
Pantaloon  and  Harlequin  and  Columbine.  Jenny  looked  shyly 
up  into  Mr.  Vergoe's  face  and  could  just  see  tears  glittering 
in  his  eyes. 

Down  came  the  front  cloth  of  the  harlequinade  with  shops 
and  mischievous  boys  and  everlastingly  mocked  policemen  and 
absent-minded  nursemaids  and  sw-ggering  soldiers.  Inspiring 
were  the  feats  achieved  by  the  Clown,  wild  were  the  trans- 
formations and  substitutions  effected  by  the  trim  and  ubiquitous 
Harlequin.  But  what  Jenny  loved  most  were  the  fairy  en- 
trances of  Columbine,  as,  like  a  pink  feather,  she  danced  be- 
fore the  footlights  and  in  and  out  of  the  shops.  Oh,  to  be  a 
Columbine,  she  thought,  to  dance  in  silver  and  pink  down 
Hagworth  Street  with  a  thousand  eyes  to  admire  her,  a  thou- 
sand hands  to  acclaim  the  beautiful  vision. 

It  came  to  an  end,  the  pantomime  of  Aladdin.  It  came  to 
an  end  with  the  Clown's  shower  of  crackers.  Triumph  of  tri- 
umphs, Jenny  actually  caught  one. 

"You  and  me  will  pull  it,"  she  whispered  to  Mr.  Vergoe, 
clasping  his  hand  in  childish  love. 

But  it  came  to  an  end,  the  pantomime  of  Aladdin;  and 
home  they  went  again  to  Hagworth  Street.  Home  they  went, 
all  three  children's  hearts  afire  with  the  potential  magic  of 
every  street  corner.  Home  they  went,  talking  and  laughing 
and  interrupting  and  imitating  and  recalling,  while  Mr.  Vergoe 
thought  of  old  days.  How  quiet  and  dark  Hagworth  Street 
seemed  when  they  reached  it. 

But  it  was  very  delightful  to  rush  in  past  Ruby  and  turn 


66  Carnival 

somersaults  all  the  wzy  to  the  kitchen.  It  was  very  delight- 
ful to  stand  in  a  knot  round  their  father  and  tell  him  the 
whole  story  and  recount  each  separate  splendor,  while  he  and 
Mr.  Vergoe  sipped  a  glass  of  Mr.  Vergoe's  warm  whisky  with 
a  slice  of  lemon  added.  It  v/as  good  fun  to  disconcert  Ruby 
by  tripping  her  up.  It  was  fine  to  seize  the  poker  and  chase 
her  all  round  the  kitchen. 

The  bedtime  of  this  never-to-be-forgotten  evening  came  at 
last.  Jenny  and  Edie  lay  awake  and  traced  in  the  ceiling 
shadows  startling  similarities  to  the  action  of  the  harlequinade. 
Edie  fell  asleep,  but  Jenny  still  lay  awake,  her  heart  going 
pitter-pat  with  a  big  resolve,  her  breath  coming  in  little  gasps 
with  the  birth  of  a  new  ambition.  She  must  go  on  the  stage. 
She  must  dance  for  all  the  world  to  gaze  at  her.  She  would. 
She  would.  She  must.  What  a  world  it  was,  this  wonderful 
world  of  the  stage — an  existence  of  color  and  scent  and  move- 
ment and  admiration. 

The  oilcloth  of  Hagworth  Street  seemed  more  than  usually 
cold  and  dreary  on  the  following  day.  Alfie,  too,  was  in  a 
very  despondent  mood,  having  fallen  deeply  in  love  with  Miss 
Letty  Lightbody,  who  had  played  the  part  of  Pekoe,  Aladdin's 
friend  and  confidant.  An  air  of  staleness  permeated  every- 
thing for  a  week.  Then  Mrs.  Raeburn  came  back  from 
Barnsbury,  and  Jenny  raised  the  question  of  going  on  the 
stage. 

The  former  was  very  angry  with  her  husband  for  allowing 
the  visit  to  the  pantomime.  Mr.  Vergoe  tried  to  take  the  blame, 
but  Mrs.  Raeburn  was  determined  the  brunt  of  the  storm 
should  fall  on  Charlie.  Jenny  was  ordered  to  give  up  all  ideas 
of  the  stage.  Schooltime  came  round  again,  and  the  would-be 
dancer  behaved  more  atrociously  than  ever.  She  was  the  de- 
spair of  her  mistresses,  and  at  home  she  would  sit  by  the  fire 
sulking.  She  began  to  grow  thin,  and  her  mother  began  to 
wonder  whether,  after  all,  it  would  not  be  wiser  to  let  her 
have  her  own  way.  She  went  upstairs  to  consult  Mr. 
Vergoe. 


Ambition  IVakes  67 

"You'll  make  a  big  mistake,"  he  assured  her,  "if  30U  keep 
her  from  what  she's  set  her  heart  on,  so  to  speak.  She  has  it 
in  her,  too.    A  proper  little  dancer  she'll  make." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  was  still  loath  to  give  in.  She  had  a  dread 
of  putting  temptation  in  the  child's  path.  She  did  not  know 
how  to  decide,  while  Jenny  continued  to  sulk,  to  be  more  and 
more  unmanageable,  to  fret  and  pine  and  grow  thinner  and 
thinner. 

"Where  could  she  go  and  learn  this  dancing?"  the  bewil- 
dered mother  asked. 

"Madame  Aldavini's,"  said  the  old  clown.  "That's  where 
my  granddaughter  learned." 

It  was  a  profession,  after  all,  thought  Mrs.  Raeburn.  What 
else  would  Jenny  do?  Go  into  service?  Somehow  she  could 
not  picture  her  in  a  parlormaid's  cap  and  apron.  Well,  why 
not  the  stage,  if  it  had  got  to  be?  She  discussed  the  project 
w^ith  her  sister  Mabel,  who  was  horrified. 

"A  ballet-girl?  Are  you  mad,  Florence?  Why,  what  a  dis- 
grace. Whatever  would  Bill  say?  An  actress?  Better  put 
her  on  the  streets  at  once." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  could  not  make  up  her  mind. 

"If  any  daughter  of  yours  goes  play-acting,"  went  on  Mrs. 
Purkiss,  "I  can't  allow  her  to  come  to  tea  with  my  Percy  and 
my  Claude  any  more,  and  that's  all  about  it." 

"Jenny  doesn't  think  going  to  tea  with  her  cousins  any- 
thing to  wave  flags  over." 

"Pig-headed,  that's  what  3'ou  are,  Florence.  All  the  years 
you've  been  a  sister  of  mine,  I've  known  you  for  a  pig-headed 
woman.  It  doesn't  matter  whether  you're  ill  or  well,  right 
or  wrong,  no  one  mustn't  advise  you.  That's  how  you  come 
to  marry  Charlie." 

The  opposition  of  Mrs.  Purkiss  inclined  her  sister  to  give 
way  before  Jenny's  desire.  It  only  needed  a  little  more  family 
interference,  and  the  child  would  be  taken  straight  off  to 
Madame  Aldavini's  School  for  Dancing. 

Miss  Horner  supplied  it;  for,  two  or  three  days  after,  a 


6  8  Carnival 

letter  came  from  Clapton,  written  in  a  quavering  hand  crossed 
and  recrossed  on  thin,  crackling  paper,  deeply  edged  in  black. 

Carminia  House, 

February  20th. 
Dear  Florence, 

My  niece  Mabel  writes  to  tell  us  you  intend  to  make 
your  little  girl  an  actress.  This  news  has  been  a  great  shock 
to  me.  You  must  not  forget  that  she  is  a  granddaughter  of 
Frederick  Horner,  the  Chymist.  She  must  not  be  a  harlot 
given  over  to  paint  and  powder.  God  is  jealous  of  the  safety 
of  His  lambs.  This  plan  of  dancing  is  a  snare  of  Satan. 
You  should  read  the  Word,  my  dear  niece.  You  will  read  of 
young  maidens  who  danced  before  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  in 
the  joy  of  the  Lord,  but  that  is  not  to  say  your  little  girl 
should  dance  for  lewdness  and  gold  when  she  might  be  sing- 
ing the  sweet  songs  of  Salvation  and  joining  in  the  holy  mirth 
of  the  Children  of  Israel.  If  you  had  let  us  adopt  her,  this 
desire  would  not  have  come.  We  do  not  let  the  Devil  into 
our  house.  You  will  be  the  cause  of  my  death,  niece,  with 
your  wicked  intentions.  I  am  an  old  woman  very  near  to 
Emmanuel.     This  great  sin  must  not  be. 

Your  loving  aunt, 

Alice  Horner. 
P.  S. — I  am  in  bed,  but  with  the  warmer  weather  I  shall 
come  to  see  you,  my  dear  niece,  and  warn  you  again. — A.  H. 

"Good  thing  she  is  in  bed,"  commented  Mrs.  Raeburn, 
as  she  finished  reading  her  aunt's  letter, 

"What's  all  this  about  Jenny  going  for  a  dancer?"  asked 
Charlie  that  evening. 

"Whatever  has  it  got  to  do  with  you,  I  should  like  to  know?" 
said  his  wife. 

"Well,  I  am  her  father,  when  all's  said  and  done.  Aren't  I?" 

"And  a  nice  example  to  a  child.  I  suppose  somebody's  got 
to  look  after  you  when  I  die." 

"I  expect  the  old  man  will  die  first.  I've  been  feeling  very 
poorly  this  year." 


Ambition  Wakes  69 

"First  I've  heard  of  it." 

"Why,  only  last  night  my  finger  was  hurting  something 
chronic." 

"Show  me." 

"Be  careful."  Mr.  Raeburn  offered  the  sick  finger  for  his 
wife's  inspection. 

"I  can't  see  nothing." 

"There,  blessed  if  I'm  not  showing  of  you  the  wrong  hand." 

"You  must  have  been  shocking  bad." 

"Well,  it's  better  now." 

"That's  enough  of  you  and  your  fingers.  Why  shouldn't 
Jenny  be  a  dancer?"  persisted  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"Don't  go  blaring  it  all  over  the  neighborhood,  anyhow, 
and  don't  give  me  the  blame  for  it  if  anything  goes  wrong." 

"Look  here,  Charlie,  when  I  married  you,  I  hadn't  got  noth- 
ing better  to  do,  had  I?" 

Charlie  shook  his  head  in  sarcastic  astonishment. 

"Yes,"  went  on  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "You  can  wag  your  great, 
silly  head,  but  I'm  not  going  to  have  my  Jenny  marrying  any- 
body.  She's  going  to  be  able  to  say,  'No,  thank  you,'  to  a 
sight  of  young  chaps.  And  if  I  can't  look  after  her  sharp 
when  she's  at  the  theater,  I  can't  look  after  her  anywhere  else, 
that's  very  certain." 

"Well,  I  call  it  rank  nonsense — rank  nonsense,  that's  what 
I  call  it,  and  don't  you  turn  round  on  me  and  say  I  put  it 
into  her  head.    What  theater's  she  going  to?" 

"You  silly  man,  she's  got  to  learn  first." 

"Learn  what?" 

"Learn  dancing — at  a  school." 

"Learn  dancing?  If  she's  got  to  learn  dancing,  what's  the 
sense  in  her  going  for  an  actress?" 

"You  had  to  learn  carpentering,  didn't  you?" 

"Of  course,  but  that's  very  different  to  dancing.  Anybody 
can  dance — some  better  than  others;  but  learn  dancing — well, 
there,  the  ideas  some  women  gets  in  their  heads,  it's  against  all 
nature." 


7  o  Carnival 

"Have  you  finished?  Because  I  got  my  washing  to  see  to. 
You  go  and  talk  it  over  at  the  'Arms.'  I  reckon  they've  got 
more  patience  tlian  me." 

Jenny  was  in  bed  when  her  mother  told  her  she  should 
become  a  pupil  of  Madame  Aldavini. 

"Aren't  you  glad?"  she  asked,  as  her  daughter  made  no  ob- 
servation. 

"Yes;  it's  all  right,"  said  Jenny,  coldly  it  seemed. 

"You   are   a  comical  child." 

"Shall  I  go  to-morrow?" 

"We'll  see." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  thought  to  herself,  as  she  left  the  room,  how 
strange  children  were;  and,  having  settled  Jenny's  future,  she 
began  to  worry  about  May,  who  was  just  then  showing  symp- 
toms of  a  weak  spine,  and  lay  awake  thinking  of  her  children 
half  the  night. 


Chapter  VIII:     Afnbition    Looks   in   the 
Glass 

N    Mr,   Vergoe's   recommendation,    Madame  Aldavini 
granted    an    interview    to    Mrs.    Raeburn    r.nd    her 
daughter,  and  the  old  clown  was  to  accompany  them 
on  the  difficult  occasion. 

It  was  a  warm  April  day  when  they  set  out,  with  a  sky 
like  the  matrix  of  turquoise.  The  jagged  purple  clouds  were 
so  high  that  all  felt  the  outside  of  an  omnibus  was  the  only 
place  on  such  a  day.  Mrs.  Raeburn  and  Jenny  sat  in  front, 
and  Mr.  Vergoe  sat  immediately  behind  them,  pointing  out 
every  object  of  interest  on  the  route.  At  least,  he  pointed  out 
everything  until  they  reached  Sadlers  Wells  Theater,  after 
which  reminiscences  of  Sadlers  Wells  occupied  the  rest  of  the 
journey.  They  swung  along  Rosebery  Avenue  and  into  Theo- 
bald's Road  and  pulled  up  at  last  by  Southampton  Row.  Then 
they  walked  through  a  maze  of  narrow  streets  to  Madame 
Aldavini's  school,  in  Great  Queen  Street,  No  longer  can  it 
be  found ;  whatever  ghosts  of  dead  coryphees  haunt  the  portals 
must  spend  a  draughty  purgatory  in  the  very  middle  of  Kings- 
way, 

It  was  a  tall,  gray  Georgian  house,  with  flat  windows  and 
narrow  sills  and  a  suitable  cornice  of  dancing  Loves  and  Graces 
over  the  door,  which  had  a  large  brass  plate  engraved  with 
"School  of  Dancing,"  and  more  bells  beside  it  than  Jenny 
had  ever  seen  beside  one  door  in  her  life.  She  thought  what 
games  could  be  played  with  Great  Queen  Street  and  its  inhabi- 

71 


7  2  Carnival 

tants,  if  it  were  in  Islington  and  all  the  houses  had  as  many 
bells.  Mr.  Vergoe  pressed  a  button  labeled  "Aldavini,"  and 
presently  they  were  walking  along  a  dark,  dusty  passage  into  a 
little  paneled  room  with  a  large  desk  and  pictures  of  dancers 
in  every  imaginable  kind  of  costume.  At  the  desk  sat  Madame 
Aldavini  herself  in  a  dress  of  tawny  satin.  Jenny  thought 
she  looked  like  an  organ-woman,  with  her  dark,  wrinkled  face 
and  glittering  black  eyes. 

"And  how  is  Mr.  Vergoe?"  she  inquired. 

"How  are  you,  Madame?"  he  replied,  with  great  deference. 

"I  am  very  well,  thank  you." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  was  presented  and  dropped  her  umbrella  in 
embarrassment,  making  Jenny  feel  very  much  ashamed  of  her 
mother  and  wish  she  were  alone  with  Mr.  Vergoe.  Then  she 
was  introduced  herself,  and  as  Madame  Aldavini  fixed  her 
with  a  piercing  eye,  Jenny  felt  so  shy  that  she  was  only  able 
to  murmur  incoherent  politeness  to  the  floor. 

The  dancing-mistress  got  up  from  her  desk  and  looked  critic- 
ally at  the  proposed  pupil. 

"You  think  the  child  will  make  a  dancer?"  she  said,  turn- 
ing sharply  to  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"Oh,  well,  really  I — well,  she's  always  jigging  about,  if 
that's  anything  to  go  by." 

Madame  Aldavini  gave  a  contemptuous  sniff. 

"I  think  she  will  make  a  very  good  dancer,"  Mr.  \  ergoe 
put  in. 

"You've  seen  her?" 

"Many  times,"  he  said.  "In  fact,  this  visit  is  due  to  me — 
in  a  manner  of  speaking." 

"Come,  we'll  see  what  she  can  do,"  said  the  mistress,  and 
led  the  way  out  of  the  little  room  along  a  glass-covered  arcade 
into  the  dancing-room. 

The  latter  was  probably  a  Georgian  ballroom  with  fine 
proportions  and  Italian  ceiling.  A  portion  of  it  was  curtained 
off  for  the  pupils  to  change  into  practice  dress,  and  all  the  way 
round  the  walls  was  a  rail  for  toe-dancing.     At  the  far  end 


Ambition  hooks  in  the  Glass       73 

was  a  dais  with  a  big  arm-chair  and  a  piano,  over  which  hung 
a  large  oil  painting  of  some  bygone  ballet  at  the  Theatre  de 
rOpera  in  Paris,  and  also  an  engraving  of  Taglioni  signed 
affectionately  by  that  great  Prima  Ballerina  Assoluta. 

Madame  Aldavini  rang  a  bell,  and  presently  Miss  Carron, 
her  pianist  and  assistant  teacher,  came  in.  Miss  Carron  was  a 
Frenchwoman,  who  had  lived  so  long  in  London  that  she 
spoke  English  better  than  French,  except  in  moments  of  great 
anger,  when  her  native  tongue  returned  to  her  with  an  added 
force  of  expression  from  such  long  periods  of  quiescence, 

"What  tune  do  you  like,  miss?"  inquired  Madame.  "What 
is  her  name?    Jenny?    Si,  I  have  no  Jenny  at  present." 

But  the  would-be  dancer  had  no  tune  by  name. 

"Play  the  what's  it  called  from  what's  its  name,"  suggested 
Mr.  Vergoe,  to  help  matters  along. 

"Hein?"  said  Miss  Carron  sharply. 

"The — you  know — the — the — well,  anjrway,  it  goes  like 
this,"  and  he  hummed  the  opening  bars  of  the  Intermezzo  from 
"Cavalleria." 

"Ah!"  said  Miss  Carron.  "But  that's  no  tune  to  dance  to. 
You  want  something  to  show  off  the  twiddly-bits." 

"Play  the  Intermezzo,"  commanded  Madame  Aldavini. 

Miss  Carron  began,  but  Jenny  could  only  wriggle  in  a  shame- 
faced way,  and  was  too  shy  to  start. 

"You  great  stupid,"  said  her  mother. 

"One,  two,  three,  off,"  said  Mr.  Vergoe. 

"You  are  frightened,  yes?  Timid?  Come,  I  shall  not  eat 
you,"  declared  Madame. 

At  last  the  novice  produced  a  few  steps. 

"Enough,"  said  Madame.  "I  take  her.  She  will  come  once 
a  week  for  the  first  year,  twice  a  week  for  the  second  year, 
three  times  a  week  the  third  year  and  every  day — how  old  is 
she?" 

"Ten." 

"Every  day  when  she  is  thirteen." 

The  further  details  of  Jenny's  apprenticeship  were  settled  in 


74  Carnival 

the  little  paneled  room,  while  Jenny  listened  to  wonderful  in- 
structions about  stockings  and  shoes  and  skirts.  When  it  was 
all  over  the  three  visitors  walked  out  of  the  gray  house,  where 
Jenny  was  to  spend  so  many  hours  of  childhood,  into  Great 
Queen  Street  and  an  April  shower  sprinkling  the  pavement 
with  large  preliminary  drops.  Mr.  Vergoe  insisted  on  standing 
tea  at  a  shop  in  Holborn  for  the  luck  of  the  adventure.  Jenny's 
first  chocolate  eclair  probably  made  a  more  abiding  impression 
on  her  mind  than  the  first  meeting  with  Madame  Aldavini. 

So  Jenny  became  a  dancer  and  went,  under  her  mother's 
escort,  to  Great  Queen  Street  once  a  week  for  a  year. 

The  pupils  of  Madame  Aldavini  all  v/ore  pink  tarlatan 
skirts,  black  stockings  clocked  with  pink,  and  black  jerseys  with 
a  large  pink  A  worked  on  the  front.  There  were  about  twenty 
girls  in  Jenny's  class,  who  all  had  lockers  and  pegs  of  their 
own  in  the  anteroom  curtained  off  by  black  velvet  draperies. 
Fat  theatrical  managers  with  diamond  rings  and  buttonholes 
sometimes  used  to  sit  beside  Madame  and  watch  the  pupils. 
She  sat  on  the  dais,  whence  her  glittering  black  eyes  and  keen 
face  could  follow  the  dancers  everywhere.  Jenny  used  to 
think  the  mistress  was  like  a  black  note  of  the  piano  come  to 
life.  There  was  something  so  clean  and  polished  and  clear- 
cut  about  Madame.  Her  eyes,  she  used  to  think,  were  like 
black  currants.  Madame's  feet  in  black  satin  shoes  were  rest- 
less all  the  while  beneath  her  petticoats;  but  she  never  let  them 
appear,  so  that  the  children  should  have  no  assistance  beyond 
the  long  pole  with  which  she  used  to  mark  the  beat  on  the 
floor  and  sometimes  on  the  shoulders  of  a  refractory  dancer. 

Two  years  rolled  by,  and  Jenny  was  able  to  go  alone  now. 
She  was  considered  one  of  Madame  Aldavini's  best  pupils,  and 
several  managers  wanted  her  for  fairy  parts,  but  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn  always  refused,  and  Madame  Aldavini,  because  she 
thought  that  Jenny  might  be  spoilt  by  too  premature  a  first 
appearance,  did  not  try  persuasion. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  the  instant  that  Jenny  had  her 
own  way  and  was  fairly  set  on  the  road  to  the  gratification  of 


Ambition  Looks  in  the  Glass       75 

her  wishes,  she  began  to  be  lazy.  She  was  so  far  a  natural 
dancer  that  nearly  every  step  came  very  easily  to  her.  This 
facility  was  fatal,  for  unless  she  learned  at  once,  she  would 
not  take  the  trouble  to  learn  at  all.  Madame  used  to  write 
home  to  Hagworth  Street  complaints  of  her  indolence,  and 
Mrs.  Raeburn  used  to  threaten  to  take  her  away  from  the 
school.  Then  for  a  very  short  time  Jenny  would  work  really 
hard. 

At  thirteen  she  went  every  day  to  the  dancing  school,  and 
at  thirteen  Jenny  had  deliciously  slim  legs  and  a  figure  as  lithe 
as  a  hazel  wand.  Her  almond  eyes  were  of  some  fantastic 
shade  of  sapphire-blue  with  deep  gray  twilights  in  them  and  sea- 
green  laughters.  They  were  extraordinary  eyes  whose  undcr- 
lids  always  closed  first.  Her  curls  never  won  back  the  silver 
they  lost  in  the  country ;  but  her  complexion  had  the  bloom 
and  delicate  texture  of  a  La  France  rose,  although  in  summer 
her  straight  little  nose  was  freckled  like  a  bird's  egg.  Her 
hands  were  long  and  white ;  her  lips  very  crimson  and  trans- 
lucent, but  the  under-lip  protruded  slightly,  and  bad  temper  gave 
it  a  vicious  look.  Her  teeth  were  small,  white,  and  glossy  as 
a  cat's.  She  cast  a  powerful  enchantment  over  all  the  other 
girls,  so  that  when,  from  tomboy  loiterings  and  mischievous 
escorts,  she  arrived  late  for  class,  they  would  all  run  round 
for  her  with  shoes  and  petticoats  and  stockings,  like  little  slaves. 
Laughingly,  she  would  let  them  wait  upon  her  and  wonder 
very  seldom  why  she  was  the  only  girl  so  highly  favored.  She 
had  a  sharp  tongue  and  no  patience  for  the  giggles  and  enlaced 
arms  of  girlhood.  She  had  no  whispered  secrets  to  communi- 
cate. She  never  put  out  a  finger  to  help  her  companions, 
although  sometimes  she  would  prompt  the  next  girl  through  a 
difficult  step.  She  was  entirely  indifferent  to  their  adoration. 
As  if  the  blood  of  queens  ran  in  her  veins,  she  accepted  hom- 
age naturally.  Perhaps  it  was  some  boyish  quality  of  debonair 
assurance  in  Jenny  that  made  the  rest  of  them  disinclined  to 
find  any  fault  in  her.  She  seemed  as  though  she  ought  to  be 
spoilt,  and  if,  like  most  spoilt  children,  she  was  unpleasant  at 


76 


Carnival 


home,  she  was  very  charming  abroad.  Her  main  idea  of 
amusement  was  to  be  "oiEf  with  the  boys,"  by  whom  she  was 
treated  as  an  equal.  There  was  no  sentiment  about  her,  and 
an  attempted  kiss  would  have  provoked  spitfire  rage.  There 
was  something  of  Atalanta  about  her,  and  in  Hellas  Artemis 
would  hnve  claimed  her,  running  by  the  thyme-scented  borders 
of  Calydon. 

Madame  Aldavini,  with  some  disapproval,  watched  her 
progress.  She  was  not  satisfied  with  her  pupil  and  determined 
to  bring  her  down  to  the  hard  facts  of  the  future.  Jenny  was 
called  up  for  a  solo  lesson.  These  solo  lessons,  when  Madame 
used  to  show  the  steps  by  making  her  fingers  dance  on  her  knees, 
were  dreaded  by  everybody. 

"Come  along  now,"  she  said,  and  hummed  an  old  ballet 
melody,  tapping  her  fingers  the  while. 

Jenny  started  off  well  enough,  but  lost  herself  presently  in 
trying  to  follow  those  quick  fingers. 

"Again,  foolish  one,"  cried  the  mistress.  "Again,  I  say. 
Well  can  you  do  it,  if  you  like." 

"I  can't,"  declared  Jenny  sulkily.     "It's  too  difficult." 

Madame  Aldavini  seized  her  long  pole  and  brandished  it 
fiercely. 

"Again,  self-willed  baby,  again." 

Jenny,  with  half  a  screwed-up  eye  on  the  pole,  made  a  sec- 
ond attempt ;  the  pole  promptly  swung  round  and  caught  her  on 
the  right  shoulder.     She  began  to  cry  and  stamp. 

"I  can't  do  it;  I  can't  do  it." 

"You  will  do  it.     You  shall  do  it." 

Once  more  Jenny  started,  and  this  time  succeeded  so  well 
that  it  was  only  at  the  very  end  of  the  new  step  that  Madame 
angrily  pushed  the  pole  between  her  pretty  ankles,  rattling 
it  from  side  to  side  to  show  her  contempt  for  Jenny's  obsti- 
nacy. 

"For  it  is  obstinacy,"  she  declared.  "It  is  not  stupidity. 
Bah !  well  can  you  do  it,  if  you  like." 

So  Madame  conquered  in  the  end  with  her  long  pole  and 


Ambition  Looks  i?i  the  Glass       77 

her  sharp  tongue,  and  Jenny  learned  the  new  and  difficult 
step. 

"Listen  to  me,"  said  the  former.  "Do  you  not  wish  to 
become  a  Prima  Ballerina?" 

"Yes,"  murmured  Jenny,  the  sooner  to  be  out  of  Madame's 
reach,  and  back  with  the  boys  in  Islington. 

"You  have  not  the  banal  smile  of  the  danseuse  who  takes  her 
strength  from  her  teeth.  You  have  not  the  fat  forearm  or 
dreadful  wrist  of  those  idiots  who  take  their  strength  from 
them,  and,  thanks  to  me,  you  might  even  become  a  Prima 
Ballerina  Assoluta." 

The  words  of  an  old  comic  song  about  a  girl  called  Di 
who  hailed  from  Utah  and  became  a  Prima  Ballerina  Asso- 
luta returned,  with  its  jingling  tune,  to  Jenny's  head,  while 
Madame  was  talking. 

"Whistle  not  while  I  talk,  inattentive  one,"  cried  her  mis- 
tress, banging  the  pole  down  with  a  thump. 

"Have  you  dreams  of  success,  of  bouquets  and  sables  and 
your  own  carriage?  Look  around  you,  lazy  one.  Look  at 
the  great  Taglioni  whom  emperors  and  kings  applauded.  Yet 
you,  miserable  child,  you  can  only  now  make  one  'cut.'  Why 
do  you  come  here  unless  you  have  ambition  to  succeed,  to  be 
maitresse  of  your  art,  to  sweep  through  the  stage  door  with 
silk  dresses?  Do  I  choose  you  from  the  others  to  dance  to  me, 
unless  I  wish  your  fortune — eh?  If,  after  this,  you  work  not, 
I  finish  with  you.     I  let  you  go  your  own  pig-headed  way." 

Jenny  did  work  for  a  while,  and  even  persevered  and  prac- 
ticed so  dil^ently  as  to  be  able  to  do  a  double  cut  and  a  fairly 
high  beat,  sweeping  all  the  cups  and  saucers  off  the  kitchen 
table  as  she  did  so.  But  when  she  had  achieved  this  accom- 
plishment, how  much  nearer  was  she  to  a  public  appearance,  a 
triumphant  success?  What  was  the  use  of  practicing  difficult 
steps  for  the  eyes  of  Ruby?  What  was  the  use  of  holding  on 
to  the  handle  of  the  kitchen  door  and  putting  one  leg  straight 
up  till  her  toes  twinkled  over  the  top  of  it?  Ruby  only  said, 
"You  unnatural  thing,"  or  drew  her  breath  in  through  ridged 


78 


Carnival 


teeth  in  horrified  amazement.  What  was  the  good  of  slaving 
all  day?  It  was  better  to  enjoy  one's  self  by  standing  on  the 
step  of  young  Willie  Hopkins'  new  bicycle  and  floating  round 
Highbury  Barn  with  curls  and  petticoats  flying,  and  peals  of 
wild  laughter.  It  was  much  more  pleasant  to  shock  old  ladies 
by  puffing  the  smoke  of  cigarettes  before  them,  or  to  play  Fol- 
low my  Leader  over  the  corrugated-iron  roof  of  an  omnibus 
depot. 

Sometimes  she  took  to  playing  truant  for  wind-blown  after- 
noons by  Highgate  Ponds  in  the  company  of  boys,  and  always 
made  the  same  excuse  to  Madame  of  being  wanted  at  home, 
until  Madame  grew  suspicious  and  wrote  to  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

Her  mother  asked  why  Jenny  had  not  gone  to  her  dancing- 
lesson,   and  where  she  had  been. 

"I  was  there,"  vowed  Jenny.  "Madame  can't  have  noticed 
me." 

So  Mrs.  Raeburn  wrote  and  explained  the  mistake,  and 
Jenny  managed  with  great  anxiety  to  obtain  possession  of  the 
letter,  ostensibly  in  order  to  post  it,  but  really  in  order  to  tear 
it  to  a  hundred  pieces  round  the  corner. 

She  was  naturally  a  truthful  child,  but  the  long  restraint  of 
childhood  had  to  be  mitigated  somehow,  and  lying  to  those  in 
authority  was  no  sacrifice  of  her  egotism,  the  basis  of  all 
essential  truthfulness.  With  her  contemporaries  she  was  al- 
ways proudly,  indeed  painfully,  frank. 

This  waiting  to  grow  up  was  unendurable.  Everybody  else 
was  emancipated  except  herself.  Ruby  went  away  to  be  mar- 
ried— a  source  of  much  speculation  to  Jenny,  who  could  not 
understand  anybody  desiring  to  live  in  a  state  of  such  corporeal 
intimacy  with  Ruby. 

"I'm  positive  he  don't  know  she  snores,"  said  Jenny  to  her 
mother. 

"Well,  what's  it  got  to  do  with  you?" 

What,  indeed,  had  anything  to  do  with  her?  It  was  shock- 
ing how  utterly  unimportant  she  was  to  Hagworth  Street. 

Edie  had  gone  away  to  learn  dressmaking,   and  Alfie   had 


Ambition  Looks  in  the  Glass       79 

vanished  into  some  Midland  town  to  learn  something  else,  and 
occupjing  his  room  there  was  another  lodger  whom  she  liked. 
Then  one  day  he  came  into  the  kitchen  in  a  queer  brown  suit 
and  said  he  was  "off  to  the  Front." 

"Gone  for  a  soldier?"  said  her  father,  when  he  heard  of  it. 
"Good  Lord !  some  people  don't  know  when  they're  well  off, 
and  that's  a  fact." 

There  was  nobody  to  inflame  Jenny  with  the  burning  splen- 
dors of  patriotism.  It  became  merely  a  matter  of  clothes,  like 
everything  else.  She  gathered  it  was  the  correct  thing  to  w'ear 
khaki  ties,  sometimes  with  scarlet  for  the  soldiers  or  blue  for 
the  sailors.  It  was  also  not  outrageous  to  wear  a  Union  Jack 
waistcoat.  But  any  conception  of  a  small  nation  fighting  inch 
by  inch  for  their  sun-parched  country,  of  a  great  nation  sacri- 
ficing even  its  sense  of  humor  to  consolidate  an  empire  and 
avenge  a  disgrace,  was  entirely  outside  her  imaginative  experi- 
ence. 

What  had  it  got  to  do  with  her? 

There  was  nobody  to  implant  ideals  of  citizenship  or  try 
to  show  her  relation  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  Her  edu'^ation 
at  the  board  school  was  mechanical ;  the  mistresses  were  like 
mental  coffee-grinders,  who,  having  absorbed  a  certain  num- 
ber of  hard  facts  roasted  by  somebody  else,  distributed  them  in 
a  more  easily  assimiliated  form.  They  tried  to  give  children 
the  primary  technique  of  knowledge,  but  without  any  sugges- 
tions as  to  the  manner  of  application.  She  had  enough  com- 
mon sense  to  grasp  the  ultimate  value  of  drearily  reiterated 
practice  steps  in  dancing.  She  perceived  that  they  were  laying 
the  foundation  of  something  better.  It  was  only  her  own  im- 
patience which  nullified  some  of  the  practical  results  of  much 
academic  instruction.  But  of  her  intellectual  education  the 
foundations  were  not  visible  at  all.  The  teachers  were  build- 
ing on  sand  a  house  which  would  topple  over  as  soon  as  she 
was  released  from  attendance  at  school.  Jenny  was  a  sufferer 
from  the  period  of  transition  through  which  educational  theories 
were  passing,  and  might  have  been  better  off  under  the  old 


8o  Carnival 

system  of  picturesque  misapprehensions  of  truth,  or  even  with 
no  deliberate  education  at  all.  It  is  important  to  understand 
the  stark  emptiness  of  Jenny's  mind  now  and  for  a  long  while 
afterwards.  Life  was  a  dragging,  weary  aifair  unless  she  was 
being  amused.  There  had  been  no  mental  adventures  since, 
flashing  and  glorious,  the  idea  of  dancing  came  furiously  through 
the  night  as  she  lay  awake  thinking  of  the  pantomime.  The 
fault  was  not  hers.  She  was  the  victim  of  sterile  imaginations. 
Her  soul  was  bleak  and  cold  as  the  life  of  man  in  the  days 
before  Prometheus  stole  fire  from  heaven. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  May,  Jenny  would  have  been  even 
less  satisfactory  than  she  was.  But  May,  with  her  bird-like 
gayety — not  obstreperous  like  a  blackbird's,  but  sweet  and  in- 
conspicuous as  the  song  of  a  goldfinch  dipping  through  the  air 
above  apple-orchards — May,  with  her  easy  acceptance  of  physi- 
cal deformity,  shamed  her  out  of  mere  idle  discontent.  Jenny 
would  talk  to  her  of  the  dancing-school  till  May  knew  every 
girl's  peculiarity. 

"She's  funny,  my  sister.  She's  a  caution,  is  young  May. 
Poor  kid,  a  shame  about  her  back." 

They  quarreled,  of  course,  over  trifles,  but  May  was  the 
only  person  to  whom  Jenny  would  behave  as  if  she  were  sorry 
for  anything  she  had  done  or  said.  She  never  admitted  her 
penitence  in  word  to  anybody  on  earth.  It  was  a  pleasure 
to  Mrs.  Raeburn,  this  fondness  of  Jenny  for  May,  and  once 
in  a  rare  moment  of  confidence,  she  told  the  elder  child  that 
she  depended  on  her  to  look  after  May  when  she  herself  was 
gone. 

"With  her  poor  little  back  she  won't  ever  be  able  to  earn 
her  living — not  properly,  and  when  you're  on  the  stage  and 
getting  good  money,  you  mustn't  leave  May  out  in  the 
cold." 

Here  was  something  vital,  a  tangible  appeal,  not  a  sentiment 
broadly  expressed  without  obvious  application  like  the  culminat- 
ing line  of  a  hymn.  Here  was  a  reason,  and  Jenny  clung  fast 
to  it  as  a  drowning  seafarer  will  clutch  at  samphire,  uncon- 


Ambition  Looks  in  the  Glass       8  i 

scious  of  anything  save  greenery  and  blessed  land.  People 
were  not  accustomed  to  give  Jenny  reasons.  When  she  had 
one,  usually  self-evolved,  she  held  fast  to  it,  nor  cared  a  jot 
about  its  possible  insecurity.  Reasons  were  infrequent  bits  of 
greenery  to  one  battered  by  a  monotonous  and  empty  ocean ; 
for  Jenny's  mind  was  indeed  sea-water  with  the  flotsam  of 
wrecked  information,  with  wonderful  hues  evanescent,  with  the 
sparkle  and  ripple  of  momentary  joys,  with  the  perpetual  boom- 
ing of  discontent,  sterile  and  unharvested. 

One  breezy  June  day,  much  the  same  sort  of  day  as  that 
when  Jenny  danced  under  the  plane-tree,  Madame  Aldavini 
told  her  she  could  give  her  a  place  as  one  of  the  quartette  of 
dancers  in  a  Glasgow  pantomime. 

"But,  listen,"  said  Madame,  "what  they  want  is  acrobatic 
dancing.  If  you  join  this  quartette,  it  does  not  mean  you  give 
up  dancing — ballet-dancing,  you  understand ;  you  will  come 
back  to  me  when  the  pantomime  is  over  until  you  are  able  to 
join  the  Ballet  at  Covent  Garden.  You  will  not  degrade  your 
talent  by  sprawling  over  shoulders,  by  handsprings  and  splits 
and  the  tricks  which  an  English  audience  likes.  You  under- 
stand?" 

Jenny  did  not  really  understand  anything  beyond  the  glorious 
fact  that  in  December  she  would  be  away  from  Hagworth 
Street  and  free  at  last  to  do  just  as  she  liked. 

Mrs.  Raeburn,  when  she  heard  of  the  proposal,  declined  to 
entertain  its  possibility.  It  was  useless  for  Jenny  to  sulk  and 
slam  doors,  and  demand  furiously  why  she  had  been  allowed 
to  learn  dancing  if  she  was  not  to  be  allowed  ever  to  make  a 
public  appearance. 

"Time  enough  for  that  in  the  future,"  said  her  mother. 
"There'll  always  be  plenty  of  theaters." 

Jenny  became  desperate.  Her  dreams  of  a  glorious  freedom 
were  fading.     That  night  she  took  to  bed  with  her  a  knife. 

"What  are  you  doing  with  that  knife?"  said  May. 

"I'm  going  to  kill  myself,"  said  Jenny. 

Pale  as  a  witch,  she  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed.     White  was 


8  2  Carnival 

her  face  as  a  countenance  seen  in  a  looking-glass  at  dawn.  Her 
lips  were  closed ;  her  eyes  burned. 

May  shrieked. 

"Mother — dad — come  quick:  Jenny's  going  to  kill  herself 
with  the  carving-knife." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  rushed  into  the  room  and  saw  the  child  with 
the  blade  against  her  throat.     She  snatched  away  the  knife. 

"Whatever  was  you  going  to  do?" 

"I  want  to  go  to  Glasgow,"  said  Jenny;  "and  I'll  kill  my- 
self if  I  don't." 

"I'll  give  you  'kill  yourself,'  "  cried  Mrs,  Raeburn,  slapping 
her  daughter's  cheeks  so  that  a  crimson  mark  burned  on  its 
dead   paleness. 

"Well,  I  will,"  said  Jenny. 

"We'll  see  about  it,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn.  Jenny  knew  she 
had  won;  and  deserved  victory,  for  she  had  meant  what  she 
said.  Her  mother  was  greatly  perplexed.  Who  would  look 
after  Jenny? 

Madame  Aldavini  explained  that  there  would  be  three  other 
girls,  that  they  would  all  live  together,  that  she  herself  would 
see  them  all  established,  as  she  had  to  go  north  herself  to  give 
the  final  touches  to  the  ballet  which  she  was  producing;  that 
no  harm  would  come  to  Jenny ;  that  she  would  really  be  more 
strictly  looked  after  than  she  was  at  home. 

"That's  quite  impossible,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

Madame  smiled  sardonically. 

"However,"  Mrs.  Raeburn  went  on,  "I  suppose  she's  got 
to  make  a  start  some  time.     So  let  her  go." 

Now  followed  an  interlude  from  toe-dancing — an  interlude 
which  Jenny  enjoyed,  although  once  she  nearly  strained  herself 
doing  the  "strides."  But  acrobatic  dancing  came  very  easily  to 
her,  and  progress  was  much  more  easily  discernible  than  in  the 
long  and  tiresome  education  for  the  ballet. 

Of  the  other  three  girls  who  were  to  make  up  the  Aldavini 
Quartette,  only  one  was  still  at  the  school.  She  was  a  plump 
girl  called  Eileen  Vaughan,  three  years  older  than  Jenny,  prim 


Ambition  Looks  in  the  Glass       83 

and,  In  the  later's  opinion,  "very  stuck  up."  Jenny  hoped  that 
the  other  two  would  be  more  fun  than  Eileen.  Eileen  was  a 
pig,  although  she  liked  her  name. 

Great  problems  arose  in  Hagworth  Street  out  of  Jenny's 
embarkation  upon  the  ship  of  life.  So  long  as  she  had  been 
merely  a  pupil  of  Madame  Aldavini's,  family  opposition  to  her 
choice  of  a  profession  had  slumbered ;  but  with  the  prospect  of 
her  speedy  debut,  it  broke  out  again  very  fiercely. 

Old  Miss  Horner  had  died  soon  after  her  letter  of  protest 
against  the  dancing  notion,  and  Miss  Mary  was  left  alone  in 
Carminia  House — in  isolated  survival,  a  pathetic  more  than  a 
severe  figure.  However,  she  ventured  to  pay  a  visit  to  her 
niece  in  order  to  present  a  final  remonstrance,  but  she  lacked 
the  power  of  her  two  elder  sisters.  What  they  commanded, 
she  besought.  What  they  declared,  she  hinted.  Mrs.  Raeburn 
felt  quite  sorry  for  the  poor  old  thing,  as  she  nodded  on 
about  salvation  and  temptation  and  the  wages  of  sin.  Old 
Miss  Horner  used  to  be  able  to  wing  her  platitudes  with  the 
flame  of  God's  wrath,  but  Miss  Mary  let  them  appear  as  the 
leaden  things  they  really  were.  She  made  no  impression  but 
that  of  her  own  loneliness,  went  back  to  Carminia  House  after 
declining  a  slice  of  cherry  cake,  and  died  shortly  afterwards, 
to  the  great  comfort  of  the  Primitive  Methodists  of  Sion 
Chapel,  who  gained  velvet  cushions  for  the  pews  in  conse- 
quence, and  became  less  primitive  than  ever. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  could  not  help  speculating  for  an  hour  or 
two  upon  the  course  of  Jenny's  life  if  she  had  accepted  her 
aunts'  offer,  but  went  to  sleep  at  the  end  of  it  thinking,  any- 
way, it  would  be  all  the  same  a  hundred  years  hence. 

Mrs.  Purkiss  came  and  registered  a  vow  never  to  come 
again  if  Jenny  really  went ;  but  she  had  registered  so  many 
vows  in  her  sister's  hearing  that  Mrs.  Raeburn  had  come  to 
regard  them  with  something  of  that  familiarity  which  must 
ultimately  dull  the  surprise  of  a  Commissioner  for  Oaths,  and 
treated  them  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Uncle  James  Threadgale,  with  face  as  pale  and  square  as 


84 


Carnival 


ever,  but  with  hair  slightly  damper  and  thinner,  suggested 
that  Jenny  should  come  down  to  Galton  for  a  bit  and  think  it 
over.  This  offer  being  pleasantly  declined,  he  gave  her  a 
roll  of  blue  serge  and  asked  a  blessing  on  the  undertaking. 

Charlie,  having  found  that  he  was  easily  able  to  keep  all 
knowledge  of  his  daughter's  lapse  into  publicity  from  his  fel- 
low-workmen at  the  shop  in  Kentish  Town,  decided  to  cele- 
brate her  imminent  departure  to  the  boreal  pole  (Glasgow 
soon  achieved  a  glacial  topography  in  Hagworth  Street),  by 
giving  a  grand  supper-party. 

"We'll  have  old  Vergoe  and  Madame  Neverseenher" — his 
witty  periphrasis  for  Aldavini — "and  a  brother  of  mine  you've 
none  of  you  never  seen  either,  a  rare  comic,  or  he  used  to  be, 
though  where  he  is  now,  well,  that  wants  knowing." 

"What's  the  good  of  saying  he's  to  come  to  supper,  then?" 
inquired  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"Only  if  he's  about,"  explained  Charlie.  "If  he's  about,  I'd 
like  Jenny  here  to  meet  him,  because  he  was  always  a  big 
hand  at  club  concerts  twenty  years  ago,  before  he  went  to 
Africa.    Arthur  his  name  was." 

"Oh,  for  goodness  sake,  stop  your  talking,"  said  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn. 

"And  you  can't  ask  Madame,"  announced  Jenny,  who  was 
horrified  by  the  contemplation  of  a  meeting  between  her 
father  and  the  dancing-mistress. 

''And  why  not?  And  why  not?  Will  anybody  here  kindly 
tell  me  why  not?" 

"Because  you  can't,"  said  Jenny  decidedly. 
"Of  course  not.     The  child's  quite  right,"  Mrs.  Raeburn 
corroborated. 

"Well,  of  course,  you  all  know  better  than  the  old  man. 
But  I  daresay  she'd  like  to  talk  about  Paris  with  your  poor 
old  dad." 

However,  notwithstanding  the  elision  of  all  Mr.  Raeburn's 
proposed  guests  from  the  list  of  invitations,  the  supper  did 
happen,  and  the  master  of  the  house  derived  some  consolation 


Ambition  Looks  in  the  Glass       85 

from  being  allowed  to  preside  at  the  head  of  his  own  table,  if 
not  sufficiently  far  removed  from  his  wife  to  enjoy  himself 
absolutely.  Mr,  Vergoe,  getting  a  very  old  man  now,  came 
with  Miss  Lilli  Vergoe,  still  a  second-line  girl  at  the  Orient 
Theater  of  Varieties,  and  Edie  arrived  from  Brixton,  where 
she  was  learning  to  make  dresses.  Eileen  Vaughan  came,  at 
Mrs.  Raeburn's  instigation  and  much  to  Jenny's  disgust,  and 
Mr.  Smithers,  the  new  lodger,  a  curly-headed  young  draper's 
assistant,  tripped  down  from  his  room  upstairs.  May,  of 
course,  was  present,  and  Alfie  sent  a  picture  postcard  from 
Northampton,  showing  the  after-effects  of  a  party.  This  was  put 
upon  the  mantelpiece  and  greatly  diverted  the  company.  Mrs. 
Purkiss  was  invited,  and  pasty-faced  Percy  and  Claude  and 
Mr.  Purkiss  were  also  invited,  but  Mrs.  Purkiss  signalized  her 
disapproval  by  taking  no  notice  of  the  invitation,  thereby  throw- 
ing Mrs,  Raeburn  into  a  regular  flutter  of  uncertainty.  Nev- 
ertheless, she  turned  up  ten  minutes  late  with  both  her  off- 
spring, to  everybody's  great  disappointment  and  Mrs,  Rae- 
burn's great  anxiety,  when  she  saw  with  what  a  will  her 
nephevvs  settled  down  to  the  tinned  tongue. 

The  supper  passed  of^  splendidly,  and  nearly  everything  was 
eaten  and  praised.  Mrs.  Purkiss  talked  graciously  to  ]VIr, 
Smithers  about  the  prospects  of  haberdashery  and  the  princi- 
ples of  window-dressing  and,  somewhat  tactlessly,  about  the 
advantage  of  cash  registers,  Charlie  gave  a  wonderfully  humor- 
ous description  of  his  first  crossing  of  the  English  Channel. 
Percy  and  Claude  ate  enormously,  and  Percy  was  sick,  to  his 
uncle's  immense  entertainment  and  profound  satisfaction,  as  it 
gave  him  an  excuse  to  tell  the  whole  story  of  the  Channel 
crossing  over  again,  ending  up  with:  "It's  all  right,  Perce. 
Cheer  up,  sonny,  Dover's  in  sight." 

Eileen  ate  self-consciously  and  gazed  with  considerable  re- 
spectfulness at  Miss  Lilli  Vergoe,  who  related  pleasantly  her 
many  triumphs  over  the  snares  and  duplicity  of  the  new  stage 
manager  at  the  Orient.  Mr.  Vergoe  chatted  amiably  with 
everybody  in  turn  and  made  a  great   feature   of   helping  the 


8  6  Carnival 

stewed  tripe.  May  went  into  fits  of  laughter  at  everything 
and  everybody,  and  Jenny  discussed  with  Edie  what  style  of 
dress  should  be  made  from  the  roll  of  blue  serge  presented  to 
her  by  Uncle  James. 

After  supper  everybody  settled  down  to  make  the  evening 
a  complete  success. 

Mr.  Vergoe  sang  "Champagne  Charlie"  and  "In  Her  Hair 
She  Wore  a  White  Camelia,"  and  Mr.  Raeburn  joined  in  the 
chorus  of  the  former  with  a  note  of  personal  satisfaction,  while 
Mrs.  Raeburn   always  said: 

"  Champagne  Charlie  //  his  name, 
Half  a  pint  of  porter  is  his  game." 

Neither  Miss  Vergoe  nor  Miss  Vaughan  would  oblige  with 
a  dance,  to  the  great  disappointment  of  Mr.  Smithers,  who 
had  hoped  for  a  solution  of  many  sartorial  puzzles  from  such 
close  proximity  to  two  actresses.  Jenny,  however,  was  set  on 
the  table  when  the  plates  had  been  cleared  away,  and  danced 
a  breakdown  to  the  great  embarrassment  of  Mrs.  Purkiss,  who 
feared  for  pasty-faced  Percy  and  Claude's  sense  of  the  shocking. 

Percy  recited  Casabianca,  and  Claude,  though  he  did  not 
recite  himself,  prompted  his  brother  in  so  many  of  the  lines 
that  it  became,  to  all  purposes,  a  duet.  Edie  giggled  in  a 
corner  with  Mr.  Smithers,  and  told  the  latter  once  or  twice 
that  he  was  a  sauce-box  and  no  mistake.  Mr.  Smithers  him- 
self sang  "Queen  of  My  Heart,"  in  a  mildly  pleasant  tenor 
voice,  and,  being  encored,  sang  "Maid  of  Athens,"  and  told 
Miss  Vergoe,  in  confidence,  that  several  persons  had  passed 
the  remark  that  he  was  very  like  Lord  Byron.  To  which  Miss 
Vergoe,  with  great  want  of  appreciation,  replied,  "Who  cares?" 
and  sent  Mr.  Smithers  headlong  back  to  the  readier  admiration 
of  Edie. 

It  was  a  very  delightful  evening,  indeed,  whose  most  de- 
lightful moment,  perhaps,  was  Mrs.  Purkiss's  retirement  with 
Percy  and  Claude,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  party  to  settle  them- 
selves round  the  kitchen  fire,  roast  chestnuts,  eat  oranges  and 


Amhitio7i  Looks  in  the  Glass       87 

apples,  smoke,  and  drink  the  various  drinks  that  became  their 
ages  and  tastes. 

"And  what's  Jenny  going  to  call  herself  on  the  stage?" 
asked  Mr.  Vergoe. 

"What  does  the  man  mean?"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"Well,  she  must  have  a  stage  name.     Raeburn  is  too  long." 

"It's  no  longer  than  Vergoe,"  argued  Mrs.  Raeburn,  look- 
ing at  Lilli. 

"Oh,  but  she  already  had  a  stage  name — so  to  speak,"  ex- 
plained the  old  man  proudly.  "What's  Jenny's  second 
name : 

"Pearl,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"Oh,  mother,  you  needn't  go  telling  everybody." 

"There  you  are,"  said  Charlie,  who  had  waited  for  this 
moment  fourteen  years.  "There  you  are;  I  told  you  she 
wouldn't  thank  you  for  it  when  you  would  give  it  her.  Pearl ! 
Whoever  heard?     Tut-tut!" 

"Why  shouldn't  she  call  herself  Jenny  Pearl — Miss  Jenny 
Pearl?"  said  Mr,  Vergoe.  "If  it  isn't  a  good  Christian  name, 
it's  a  very  showy  stage  name,  as  it  were — or  wait  a  bit — what 
about  Jenny  Vere?  There  was  a  queen  or  something  called 
Jennivere — no  now,  I  come  to  think  of  it,  that  was  Guine- 
vere." 

"I  can't  think  whatever  on  earth  she  wants  to  call  herself 
anything  different  from  what  she  is,"  persisted  the  mother. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  either,  but  it's  done.  Even  Lilli 
here,  she  spells  her  first  name  differently — L-i-double  1-i,  and 
Miss  Vaughan  here,  I'll  bet  Vaughan  ain't  her  own  name — 
in  a  manner  of  speaking." 

"Yes  it  is,"  said  Miss  Vaughan,  pursing  up  her  mouth  so 
that  it  looked  like  a  red  flannel  button. 

But  Mr.  Vergoe  was  right — Miss  Eileen  Vaughan  in  Cam- 
berwxll  was  Nellie  Jaggs.  Jenny  soon  found  that  out  when 
they  lived  together,  and  wrote  a  postcard  to  Mr,  Vergoe  to 
tell  him  so. 

"But  why  must  she  be  Jenny  Pearl?"  asked  Mrs.  Raeburn. 


8  8  Carnival 

"Although,  mind,  I  don't  say  it  isn't  a  very  good  name,"  she 
added,  remembering  it  was  her  own  conjunction. 

"It's  done,"  Mr.  Vergoe  insisted.  "More  flowery — I  sup- 
pose— so  to  speak." 

So  Jenny  Raeburn  became  Jenny  Pearl,  and  her  health  was 
drunk  and  her  success  wished. 

A  few  weeks  afterward  she  stood  on  Euston  platform,  with 
a  queer  feeling,  half-way  between  sickness  and  breathlessness, 
and  was  met  by  Madame  Aldavini  with  Eileen  and  two  older 
girls,  and  bundled  into  a  reserved  compartment.  Very  soon 
she  was  waving  a  handkerchief  to  her  mother  and  May,  already 
scarcely  visible  in  the  murk  of  a  London  fog.  Life  had 
begun. 


chapter  IX:  L,ife^  Art  and  Love 

EILEEN  VAUGHAN  was,  of  course,  perfectly  familiar 
to  Jennj',  but  the  two  other  girls  who  were  to  be  her 
companions  for   several  weeks   had    to  be  much   ob- 
served during  the  first  half-hour  of  the  journey  north. 

Madame  Aldavini  was  in  a  first-class  compartment,  as  she 
wanted  to  be  alone  in  order  to  work  out  on  innumerable 
sheets  of  paper  the  arrangement  of  a  new  ballet.  So  the  Alda- 
vini Quartette  shared  between  them  the  four  corners  of  a 
third-class  compartment.  Jenny  felt  important  to  the  world, 
when  she  read  on  the  slip  pasted  to  the  window:  "Reserved 
for  Aldavini's  Quartette,  Euston  to  Glasgow."  It  was  writ- 
ten in  looking-glass  writing,  to  be  sure,  but  that  only  made 
the  slow  deciphering  of  it  the  more  delightful. 

However,  it  was  read  clearly  at  last,  and  Jenny  turned  round 
once  more  to  look  at  her  companions.  Immediately  opposite 
was  Valerie  Duval — a  French  girl  v/ith  black  fountains  of 
hair,  with  full  red  lips  and  a  complexion  that  darkened  from 
ivory  to  warm  Southern  roses  when  the  blood  coursed  to  her 
cheeks.  Her  eyes  glowed  under  heavy  brown  lids  as  she 
talked  very  sweetly  in  a  contralto  French  accent.  Soon  she 
took  Jenny  on  her  knees  and  said : 

"You  will  tell  me  all  your  secrets — yes?" 

To  which  Jenny  scoflingly  answered: 

"Secrets?    I'm  not  one  for  secrets." 

"But  you  will  confide  to  me  all  your  passions,  your  loves, 
—yes?" 

"Love?"  said  Jenny,  looking  round  over  her  shoulder  at 
Valerie.     "Love's  silly." 

89 


go  Carnival 

Valerie  smiled. 

The  other  new  friend  was  Winnie  Ambrose — raspberries 
and  cream  and  flaxen  hair  and  dimpled  chin  and  upper  lip 
curling  and  a  snub  nose.  She  was  one  of  those  girls  who 
never  suggest  the  presence  of  stays,  who  always  wear  white 
blouses  of  crepe  de  chine,  cut  low  round  a  plump  neck.  They 
have  bangles  strung  on  their  arms,  and  each  one  possesses  a 
locket  containing  the  inadequate  portrait  of  an  inadequate 
young  man.  But  Winnie  was  very  nice,  always  ready  for  a 
joke. 

The  train  swept  them  on  northwards.  Once,  as  it  slowed 
to  make  a  sharp  curve,  Jenny  looked  out  of  the  window  and 
saw  the  great  express,  like  a  line  of  dominoes  with  its  black 
and  white  carriages.  There  was  not  much  to  look  at,  how- 
ever, as  they  cleft  the  gray  December  airs,  as  they  roared 
through  echoing  stations  into  tunnels  and  out  again  into  the 
dreary  light.  They  ate  lunch,  and  Jenny  drank  Bass  out  of 
a  bottle  and  spluttered  and  made  queer  faces  and  wrinkled 
up  her  gay,  deep  eyes  in  laughter  unquenchable.  They  swept 
on  through  Lancashire  with  its  chimneys  and  furnaces  and 
barren  heaps  of  refuse.  They  swung  clear  of  these  huddled 
populations  and,  through  the  gathering  twilight,  cut  a  way 
across  the  rolling  dales  of  Cumberland.  Jenny  thought  what 
horrible  places  they  were,  these  sweeping  moorland  wastes 
with  gray  cottages  no  bigger  than  sheep,  with  switchback 
stone  walls  whence  the  crows  flew  as  the  train  surged  by. 
She  was  glad  to  be  in  the  powdered,  scented,  untidy  compart- 
ment in  warmth  and  light.  The  child  grew  tired  and,  lean- 
ing her  head  on  Valerie's  breast,  went  to  sleep;  she  was 
drowsily  glad  when  Valerie  kissed  her,  murmuring  in  a  whis- 
per melodious  as  the  splash  of  the  Saone  against  the  warm  piers 
of  her  native  Lyons: 

"Comme  elle  est  gentille,  la  gosse." 

Pillowed  thus,  Jenny  spent  the  last  hours  of  the  journey 
with  the  dark  crossing  of  the  border,  waking  in  the  raw  sta- 
tion air,   waking  to  bundles   being  pulled   down   and   papers 


Z>//^,  Art  and  Love  91 

gathered  together  and  porters  peering  in  through  the  door. 
Madame  Aldavini  siid  before  she  left  them: 

"To-morrow,  girls,  eleven  o'clock  at  the  theater." 

And  all  the  girls  said,  "Yes,  Madame,"  and  packed  them- 
selves into  a  cab  with  velvet  cushions  of  faded  peacock-blue 
and  a  smell  of  damp  straps.  There  they  sat  with  bundles 
heaped  on  their  knees,  and  were  jolted  through  the  cold  Glas- 
gow streets.  It  was  Saturday  night,  and  all  the  curbstones 
were  occupied  by  rocking  drunkards,  except  in  one  wide  street 
very  golden  and  beautiful,  from  which  they  turned  off  to 
climb  laboriously  up  the  cobbles  of  a  steep  hill  and  pull  up  at 
last  before  a  tall  house  in  a  tall,  dark,  quiet  road. 

They  walked  up  the  stairs  and  rang  the  bell.  The  big  door 
swung  open,  to  Jenny's  great  surprise,  apparently  without 
human  agency.  They  stood  in  the  well  of  a  great  winding 
stone  staircase,  while  a  husky  voice  called  from  somewhere 
high  above  them  to  come  up. 

They  had  a  large  sitting-room,  too  full  of  hangings  and 
overburdened  with  photographs  of  rigid  groups ;  but  the  fire 
was  blazing  up  the  chimney  and  the  lamp  was  throwing  a 
warm  and  comfortable  halo  on  the  ceiling.  Jenny  peeped  out 
of  the  window  and  could  see  the  black  roofs  of  Glasgow  in  the 
starlight.  They  had  tea  when  they  arrived,  w^th  porridge, 
which  Jenny  disliked  extremely,  and  oatcakes  which  made 
her  cough ;  and  after  tea  they  unpacked.  It  was  settled  that 
Jenny  should  sleep  with  Valerie.  The  bedroom  was  cosy 
with  slanting  bits  of  ceiling  flung  anywhere,  like  a  box  of  toy 
bricks  put  carelessly  away.  The  bed,  to  Jenny's  enormous 
diversion,   was  buried  in  a  deep  alcove. 

"Whoever  heard?"  she  asked. 

"We'll  be  all  to  ourselves,"  said  Valerie  in  her  deep  voice ; 
and  Jenny  felt  a  thrill  at  the  idea  of  lying  snug  in  the  alcove 
with  Valerie's  warm  arm  about  her. 

The  sitting-room  looked  a  very  different  place  when  the 
four  girls  had  scattered  over  it  their  various  belongings,  when 
they  had  flung  all  the  pntimacassars  into  the  corner  in  a  cold 


9  2  Carnival 

white  heap,  when  they  had  stuck  a  fan-shaped  line  of  photo- 
graphs round  the  mirror  over  the  mantelpiece — photographs 
of  fluffy-haired  girls  in  gay  dancing  attitudes,  usually  inscribed 
"Yours  sincerely  Lottie,  or  Amy,  or  Madge,  or  Violet." 

When  she  had  pulled  off  most  of  the  blobs  on  the  valance 
of  the  mantelpiece  and  examined  all  the  photographs,  Jenny 
sat  down  on  the  white  rabbit-skin  rug  with  her  back  to  the 
high  iron  fender  and  looked  at  her  companions — at  Winnie 
sprawling  over  a  shining  leather  arm-chair,  twisting  one  of 
the  buttons  that  starred  its  round  back,  while  she  read  "Will 
He  Remember?";  at  Eileen,  writing  home  to  Camberwell;  at 
Valerie,  as  deep  in  a  horse-hair  sofa  as  the  shape  of  it  allowed, 
smoking  a  cigarette.  She  thought,  while  she  sat  there  in  the 
warmth  and  quiet,  how  jolly  it  was  to  be  quit  of  the  eternal 
sameness  of  Hagworth  Street.  She  almost  felt  that  Islington 
no  longer  existed,  as  if  up  here  in  this  Glasgow  flat  she  were 
in  a  new  world. 

"This  is  nice,"  she  said.  "Give  us  a  cigarette,  Val,  there's 
a  duck." 

Bedtime  came  not  at  any  fixed  boring  moment,  but  sud- 
denly, with  all  the  rapture  of  an  inspiration.  Bedtime  came 
with  Valerie  taking,  it  seemed,  hours  to  undress  as  she  wan- 
dered round  the  room  in  a  maze  of  white  lace  and  pink  rib- 
bons. Jenny  lay  buried  in  the  deep  feather  bed,  watching  her 
shadow  on  the  crooked  ceiling,  following  with  drowsy  glances 
the  shadowy  combing  of  what,  in  reflection,  seemed  an  abso- 
lute waterfall  of  hair. 

Then  suddenly  Valerie  blew  out  the  candlelight. 

"Oo-er!"  cried  Jenny.  "We  aren't  going  to  sleep  in  the 
dark?" 

"Of  course  we  are,  kiddie,"  said  Valerie ;  and  somehow  dark- 
ness did  not  matter  when  Jenny  could  sail  off  into  sleep  clasp- 
ing Valerie's  soft  hot  hand. 

Gray  morning  came  with  the  stillness  of  Sunday  in  Glasgow, 
with  raindrops  pattering  against  the  window  in  gusts  of 
wind,  with  Mrs.  McMeikan  and  breakfast  on  a  tray. 


Liifcj  Art  and  Love  93 

"This  is  grand,  isn't  it?"  said  Jenny,  and  "Oo-er!"  she 
cried,  as  she  upset  the  teapot  all  over  the  bed. 

Then  the  bell  had  to  be  rung. 

"Whoever  heard  of  a  bell-rope  in  such  a  place?"  said  Jenny, 
and  pulled  it  so  hard  that  it  broke.  Then,  of  course,  there 
was  loud  laughter,  and  when  Mrs.  McMeikan  came  in  again 
Jenny  buried  herself  in  the  bedclothes  and  Valerie  had  to 
explain  what  had  happened. 

"Eh,  the  wild  wee  lassie,"  said  the  landlady, .  and  the  high 
spirits  of  the  child,  hidden  by  the  patchwork  quilt  in  the  deep 
alcove,  won  the  old  Scotswoman's  heart,  so  that  whatever  mis- 
chief Jenny  conceived  and  executed  under  her  roof  was  for- 
given because  she  was  a  "bonnie  wean,  and  awfu'  sma',  she 
was  thenkin',  to  be  sent  awa'  oot  tae  airn  her  ain  living." 

There  was  a  rehearsal  on  Sunday  because  Madame  Aldavini 
had  to  go  back  on  Sunday  night  to  London.  The  four  girls 
walked  along  the  gray  Glasgow  streets  in  the  sound  of  the 
many  footsteps  of  pious  Presbyterian  worshipers,  until  they 
arrived  at  the  stage  door  of  the  Court  Theater.  Jenny  asked, 
"Any  letters  for  me?"  in  imitation  of  Valerie  and  Winnie. 

"Any  letters  for  Raeburn — for  Pearl,  I  should  say?" 

Of  course  there  was  not  so  much  as  a  postcard,  but  Jenny 
felt  the  prouder  for  asking. 

The  rehearsal  of  "Jack  and  the  Beanstalk"  went  off  with 
the  usual  air  of  incompleteness  that  characterizes  the  rehearsal 
of  a  pantomime.  Jenny  found  that  the  Aldavini  Quartette 
were  to  be  Jumping  Beans;  and  Winnie  and  Jenny  and  Va- 
lerie and  Eileen  jumped  with  a  will  and  danced  until  they 
shook  the  boards  of  the  Court  Theater's  stage.  Madame  Alda- 
vini went  back  to  London,  having  left  many  strict  injunctions 
with  the  three  older  girls  never  to  let  Jenny  out  of  their  keep- 
ing. But  Jenny  was  not  ambitious  to  avoid  their  vigilance.  It 
was  necessary,  indeed,  occasionally,  to  slap  Eileen's  face  and 
teach  her,  but  Winnie  and  Valerie  were  darlings.  Jenny  had 
no  desire  to  talk  to  men,  and  if  lanky  youths  with  large  tie- 
pins  saluted  her  by  the  stage  door,  she  passed  on   with   her 


94  Car?irval 

nose  is  high  as  a  church  tower.  And  when,  lured  on  by  Jenny's 
long  brown  legs  and  high-brown  boots  and  trim  blue  sailor 
dress,  they  ventured  to  remove  the  paper  from  their  cuffs 
and  follow  in  long-nosed,  fishy-eyed  pursuit,  Jenny  would  catch 
hold  of  Valerie's  hand  and  swing  along  in  front  of  them  as 
serenely  cold  as  the  Huntress  Moon  sailing  over  the  heads  of 
Boeotian  swineherds. 

Those  were  jolly  days  in  Glasgow,  sweet  secluded  days  of 
virginal  pastimes  and  young  enjoyment.  They  danced  at  night 
in  their  green  dresses  and  scarlet  bean-blossom  caps.  They 
v.ere  encored  by  the  shrewd  Glasgow  audience,  who  recog- 
nized the  beauty  and  freshness  and  spirit  of  the  four  Jumping 
Beans.  They  walked  through  the  gray  Glasgow  weather 
down  Sauchiehall  Street  and  stared  at  the  gay  shopwindows. 
They  walked  through  wind-swept  Kelvin  Grove.  They 
laughed  at  nothing,  and  gossiped  about  nothing,  and  ate  large 
teas  and  smoked  cigarettes  and  lolled  in  arm-chairs  and  read 
absurd  stories  and  listened  to  Mrs.  McMeikan's  anecdotes  with 
hardly  concealed  mirth.  Nor  did  Mrs.  McMeikan  care  a  jot 
how  much  they  laughed  at  her,  "sae  bonny  was  their 
laughter." 

Everybody  in  the  pantomime^  was  very  kind  and  very  pleas- 
ant to  Jenny.  Everybody  gave  her  chocolates  and  ribbons 
and  photographs  signed  "Yours  sincerely  Lottie,  or  Amy,  or 
Madge,  or  Violet."  Everybody  wanted  her  to  be  as  happy  and 
jolly  as  possible.  She  was  a  great  favorite  with  the  gallery 
boys,  who  whistled  very  loudly  whenever  she  came  on.  She 
was  contented  and  merry.  She  did  not  feel  that  Winnie  or 
Valerie  or  even  Eileen  was  trying  to  keep  her  down.  She 
knew  they  were  loyal  and  was  fond  of  them,  but  not  so  fond 
of  them  as  they  of  her.  Eileen,  however,  thought  she  should 
be  snubbed  now  and   then. 

Jenny  was  at  a  critical  age  when  she  w^ent  to  Glasgow.  It 
was  the  time  of  fluttering  virgin  dreams,  of  quickening  pulses 
and  heartbeats  unaccountable.  If  Jenny  had  been  at  a  high 
school,  it  would  have  been  the  age  of  girlish   adorations  for 


L,ife^  Art  and  Love  95 


mistresses.  She  might  have  depended  on  the  sanctifying  touch 
of  some  older  woman  with  sympathy.  She  might  have  adopted 
the  cloistral  view  of  human  intercourse,  that  light-hearted 
world  of  little  intimate  jokes  and  sentimental  readings  and 
pretty  jealousies  for  the  small  advantage  of  sitting  next  some 
reverend  mother  or  calm  and  gentle  sister. 

However,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  transition  from 
childhood  to  womanhood  was  altogether  unmarked.  There 
were  bound  to  be  moments  of  indestructible  languor  when  she 
was  content  to  be  adored  herself.  Had  she  met  Abelard, 
Abelard  could  have  made  her  an  Heloise.  They  existed  truly 
enough,  the  passionate  fevers  and  deep  ardors  of  adolescence. 
They  flowed  up  in  momentary  caresses  and  died  as  soon  in 
profound  shynesses.  Now  was  the  time  to  feed  the  sensuous 
imagination  with  poetry  and  lull  the  frightened  soul  with 
music.    She  should  have  been  taken  to  enchanted  lands. 

But  there  was  nothing. 

Here  was  a  child  worthy  of  a  Naiad's  maternity,  if  grace  of 
limb  counted  immortally,  and  when  for  the  first  time  she  was 
given  the  world  to  look  at,  her  finite  vision  and  infinite  aspira- 
tions were  never  set  in  relation  to  each  other.  She  was  given 
a  telescope,  and  nobody  had  taken  off  the  shutter.  Her  soul 
was  a  singing  bird  in  a  cage.  Freedom  was  the  only  ideal. 
She  might  have  been  moved  by  Catholicism,  but  nobody  gave  it 
to  her.  It  may  be  idle  to  speculate  on  the  effect  of  incense- 
haunted  chapels,  of  blazing  windows  and  the  dim  accoutrements 
of  Mass.  Perhaps,  after  all,  they  would  merely  have  struck 
her  comically.  Perhaps  she  was  a  true  product  of  London 
generations,  yet  maybe  her  Cockney  wit  would  have  glittered 
more  wonderfully  in  a  richer  setting — haply  in  Lacedsmon, 
with  sea-green  tunic  blown  to  the  outline  of  slim  beauty  by 
each  wind  coming  southward  from  Thcssaly. 

Anyway,  it  was  impossible  to  think  of  her  enticed  by  the 
ready-made  gallantries  of  raw-boned  Sawnies  by  the  str.ge  door 
of  the  Court  Theater.  Her  temperament  found  greater  satis- 
faction in  Valerie's  more  beautifully  expressed  adoration.    The 


96 


Carnival 


latter  may  not  have  roused  her  to  encounter  life,  maj'  not  have 
supplied  a  purpose,  a  hope  or  a  determination,  but  at  least  it 
kept  her  contented  in  the  shy  season  of  maidenhood.  It  helped 
to  steer  her  course  between  incidental  viciousness  and  eventful 
passion.  She  went  back  to  Hagwprth  Street  with  no  red  thorns 
of  impure  associations  to  fester  and  gather.  The  days  went  by 
very  quickly  without  any  great  adventures  except  the  dance  on 
the  occasion  of  the  pantomime's  last  night.  Jenny  was  not  in- 
vited to  this  entertainment.  She  was  supposed  to  be  too 
young,  and  her  mouth  went  dry  with  disappointment  and  a 
lump  of  unshed  tears  came  into  her  throat,  and  it  almost 
seemed  as  if  her  heart  must  stop. 

"I  ought  to  go;  oh,  it  is  a  shame;  I  ought  to  go." 

Jenny  went  up  of  her  own  accord  to  the  stage-manager  him- 
self and  said: 

"Please,  Mr.  Courtenay-Champion,  why  aren't  I  asked  to 
the  dance?" 

"Good  Lord!"  said  Mr.  Courtenay-Champion.  "A  kid  like 
you?  No,  my  dear,  you're  too  young.  It  goes  on  too  late. 
After  the  show,  some  hours." 

But  Jenny  sobbed  and  cried,  and  was  so  clearly  heart-broken 
by  the  idea  of  being  left  out  that  Mr.  Courtenay-Champion 
changed  his  mind  and  told  her  she  could  come.  She  was  in- 
stantly transfigured  as  by  dazzling  sunlight  after  days  of  mist. 
It  was  to  be  a  splendid  dance,  with  jellies  and  claret-cup,  and 
Jenny  went  with  Valerie  to  buy  the  widest  pink  sash  that  ever 
was  known,  and  tied  it  in  the  largest  pink  bow  that  ever  was 
seen.  She  danced  every  single  dance  and  even  waltzed  twice 
with  the  great  comedian,  Jimmy  James,  and,  what  is  more, 
told  him  he  couldn't  dance,  to  his  great  delight,  which  seems 
to  show  that  Mr.  James  had  a  sense  of  humor  in  addition  to 
being  a  great  comedian. 

It  really  was  a  splendid  evening,  and  perhaps  the  most  splen- 
did part  of  it  was  lying  in  bed  with  Valerie  and  talking  over 
with  her  all  the  partners  and  taking  them  off  with  such  ex- 
cited   demonstration   of   their   methods    that    the    bed   became 


Zy//^,  Art  and  Love  97 


all  untucked  and  had  to  be  made  over  again  before  they  could 
finally  settle  themselves  down  to  sleep. 

In  February  Jenny  was  back  again  in  Hagworth  Street,  with 
memories  of  "Jack  and  the  Beanstalk"  fading  slowly  like  the 
colors  of  a  sunset.  She  had  enjoyed  her  personal  success  in 
Glasgow,  but  already  success  was  beginning  to  prove  itself  an 
empty  prize — a  rainbow  bubble  easily  burst.  The  reason  is 
obvious.  Jenny  had  never  been  taught  to  concentrate  her 
mind.  She  had  no  power  of  retrospective  analysis.  The 
applause  endured  a  little  while  in  her  meditations,  but  gradu- 
ally died  away  in  the  occupations  of  the  present.  She  could 
not  secure  it  as  the  basis  of  a  wider  success  on  the  next  occa- 
sion. She  began  to  ask:  "What's  the  good  of  anything?" 
Within  a  few  weeks  of  the  resumption  of  ordinary  life,  the 
Glasgow  theater  had  become  like  a  piece  of  cake  that  one 
eats  unconsciously,  then  turns  to  find  and  discovers  not.  She 
was  no  farther  forward  on  the  road  to  independence.  She 
became  oppressed  by  the  dead  weight  of  futurity. 

At  home,  too,  there  was  a  very  real  repression,  which  she 
grew  to  hate  more  and  more  deeply  on  each  occasion  of  its 
exercise.  A  breath  of  maternal  interference  and  she  would  fly 
into  a  temper — a  scowling,  chair-tilting,  door-slamming  rage. 
She  would  fling  herself  out  of  the  house  with  threats  never 
to  return.  One  day  when  she  was  reproached  with  staying 
out  longer  than  she  was  allowed,  she  rushed  out  again  and 
disappeared.  Her  mother,  in  despair,  went  off  to  invoke  the 
aid  of  Madame  Aldavini,  who  wisely  guessed  that  Jenny  would 
be  found  with  Valerie  Duval.  There  she  was,  indeed,  in  Va- 
lerie's rooms  in  Soho,  not  at  all  penitent  for  her  misbehavior, 
but  sufficiently  frightened  by  Madame's  threat  of  expulsion  to 
come  back  home  without  argument. 

Freedom  was  still  Jenny's  religion.  She  was  much  about 
with  boys,  but  still  merely  for  the  life  and  entertainment  of 
their  company,  for  no  sentimental  adventures.  It  would  have 
been  wiser  to  let  her  alone,  but  nobody  with  whom  she  was 
brought  into  contact  could  realize  the  sexlessness  of  tlie  child. 


98 


Carnival 


The  truest  safeguard  of  a  girl's  virtue  is  familiarity  with  the 
aggregated  follies  of  masculine  adolescence. 

Jenny  fought  her  way  desperately  into  her  seventeenth  year, 
winning  freedom  in  jots.  She  liked  most  of  anything  to 
go  to  Collin's  Music-hall  with  a  noisy  gang  of  attendant  boys, 
not  one  of  whom  was  as  much  a  separate  realized  entity  to  her 
as  even  an  individual  sheep  is  to  a  shepherd.  Alfie  came  home 
in  the  summer  before  her  seventeenth  birthday  and  abetted  cor- 
dially her  declarations  of  independence.  May,  too,  was  impli- 
cated in  every  plot  for  the  subversion  of  parental  authority. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  worried  terribly  about  her  daughter's  future. 
She  ascribed  her  hoyden  behavior  to  the  influence  of  the  stage. 

"We  don't  want  your  theatrical  manners  here,"  she  would 
say. 

"Well,  who  put  me  on  the  stage?"  Jenny  would  retort. 

In  the  Christmastide  after  Alfie  came  home  Jenny  went  to 
Dublin  in  a  second  Aldavini  Quartette,  and  enjoyed  herself 
more  than  ever.  She  had  now  none  of  the  desire  for  seclu- 
sion that  marked  her  Glasgow  period,  no  contempt  of  man 
in  the  abstract,  and  was  soon  good  friends  with  a  certain  num- 
ber of  young  officers  whom  she  regarded  much  as  she  regarded 
the  boys  of  Islington. 

One  of  them,  Terence  O'Meagh,  of  the  Royal  Leinster  Fusi- 
liers, made  her  his  own  special  property ;  he  was  a  charming 
good-looking,  conceited  young  Irishman,  as  susceptible  to 
women  as  most  of  his  nation,  and  endowing  the  practice  of 
love  with  as  little  humor  as  most  Celts.  He  used  to  wait  at 
the  stage  door  and  drive  her  back  to  her  lodgings  in  his  own 
jaunting  car.  He  used  to  give  her  small  trinkets  so  innocently 
devoid  of  beauty  as  almost  to  attract  by  their  artlessness.  He 
was  a  very  young  officer  who  had  borne  the  blushing  honors  of 
a  scarlet  tunic  for  a  very  short  while,  so  that,  in  addition  to 
the  Irishman's  naive  assumption  of  universal  popularity,  he 
suffered  from  the  sentiment  that  a  soldier's  red  coat  appeals  to 
every  woman. 

Jenny,  with  her  splendid  Cockney  irreverence,  thought  little 


Ljife^  Art  and  Love  99 

of  Mr.  O'Mcagh,  less  of  his  red  coat,  but  a  very  great  deal 
of  the  balm-  February  drives  past  the  vivid  green  meadows  of 
LifFey. 

"You  know,"  Terence  would  say,  leaning  gracefully  over  the 
division  of  the  car,  "you  know,  Jenny,  our  regiment — the 
127th  of  the  Line,  as  we  call  ours — was  absolutely  cut  to 
pieces  at  Drieufontein ;  and  at  Riviersdorp  they  held  the  posi- 
tion against  two  thousand  Boers." 

"Who  cares?"  said  Jenny. 

"You  might  take  a  little  interest  in  it." 

"Well,"  said  Jenny,  "how  can  I?" 

"But  you  might  be  interested  because,  after  all,  it  is  my 
regiment,  and  I'm  awfully  fond  of  you,  little  girl." 

"Don't  be  soppy,"  Jenny  advised  him. 

"You're  so  cursedly  matter-of-fact." 

"Eh?" 

"So — oh,  well,  damn  it,  Jenny,  you  don't  seem  to  care 
whether  I'm  with  you  or  not." 

"Why  should  I  ?'' 

"Any  other  girl  would  be  fond  of  me." 

"Ah — any  other  girl  would." 

"Then  why  aren't  you?" 

"Oh,  you'll  pass  in  a  crowd." 

"Dash  it,  I'm  frightfully  in  love  with  you,"  vowed  Terence. 

"What's  the  good  of  spoiling  a  fine  day  by  being  silly?" 

"Damn  it,  nobody  else  but  me  would  stick  your  rudeness." 

And  Terence  would  sulk,  and  Jenny  would  hum,  and  the 
jaunting  car  would  go  jaunting  on. 

On  the  last  night  of  the  pantomime  Mr.  O'Meagh  called 
for  her  as  usual,  and,  as  they  drove  off,  said: 

"Look  here.  Miss  Jenny,  you're  coming  back  to  my  rooms 
with  me  to-night." 

"Am  I  ?"  said  Jenny.     "That's  news." 

"By  Jove,  you  are!" 

"No  fear." 

"You  shall!" 


loo  Carnival 

Terence  caught  hold  of  her  hand. 

"Let  me  go,"  Jenny  said. 

"I'm  damned  if  I  will.  Look  here,  you  know,  you  can't 
make  a  fool  of  an  Irishman." 

"That's  quite  right,"  Jenny  agreed. 

"When  an  Irishman  says  he'll  have  a  thing,  he'll  have  it." 

"Well,  you  won't  have  Jenny  Pearl." 

"Look  here,  I've  been  jolly  good  to  you.     I  gave  you " 

"What?"  interrupted  Jenny  in  dangerous  tones.     "Look!" 

She  unbuckled  a  wrist-watch  and  flung  it  into  the  road. 

"There's  your  watch,  anyway.  Going  to  get  down  and  pick 
it  up?" 

Terence  whipped  up  the  horse. 

"You  little  devil,  you  shall  come  with  me." 

Jenny  caught  hold  of  the  reins. 

"Shut  up!"  said  O'Meagh.  "Shut  up!  Don't  you  know 
better  than  that?" 

"Well,  stop,"  said  Jenny. 

The  subaltern,  in  order  to  avoid  a  scene,  stopped. 

"Look  here,"  Jenny  told  him.  "You  think  yourself  a  lad,  I 
know,  and  you  think  girls  can't  say  'no'  to  you;  but  I  can,  see? 
You  and  your  little  cottages  for  two!  Not  much!"  and  Jenny 
slipped  down  from  the  car  and  vanished. 

"Men,"  she  said  to  Winnie  Ambrose,  the  only  one  left  of 
the  Glasgow  Quartette.  "Men!  I  think  men  are  awful.  I 
do.     Really.     Conceited!     Oh,  no;  it's  only  a  rumor." 

It  had  been  arranged  by  Madame  Aldavini  that  Jenny,  on 
her  return  from  Dublin,  should  join  the  ballet  of  the  opera 
at  Covent  Garden,  Unfortunately  her  first  appearance  in  Lon- 
don had  to  be  postponed  for  a  year  owing  to  the  fact  of  there 
being  no  vacancy.  Jenny  was  disheartened.  It  was  useless 
for  Madame  Aldavini  to  assure  her  that  the  extra  year's  prac- 
tice would  greatly  benefit  her  dancing.  Jenny  felt  she  had 
been  practicing  since  the  world  was  made.  She  continued  to 
practice  because  there  was  nothing  else  to  do,  but  time  had 
quenched  the  fire  of  inspiration.    She  was  tired  of  hearing  that 


L,ifey  Art  and  Love  i  o  I 


one  day  she  might,  with  diligence  and  application,  become  z 
Prima  Ballerina.  She  knew  she  was  a  natural  dancer,  but 
Terpischore  having  endowed  her  with  grace  and  lightness  and 
twinkling  feet,  left  the  spirit  that  could  ripen  these  gifts  to 
some  other  divinity.  She  had,  it  is  true,  escaped  the  doom  of 
an  infant  prodigy,  but  it  might  have  been  better  to  blossom  as 
a  prodigy  than  to  lie  fallow  when  the  warmth  and  glory  of 
the  footlights  were  burning  without  her. 

Meanwhile  Hagworth  Street  had  not  changed  much  in  sev- 
enteen years.  The  tall  plane-tree  at  the  end  was  taller.  The 
London  County  Council,  not  considering  it  possessed  any  capac- 
ity for  decoration,  had  neglected  to  lop  ofiE  its  head,  and,  as 
there  was  no  other  tree  in  sight,  did  not  think  it  worth  the 
trouble  of  clipping  to  an  urban  pattern.  Year  by  year  it  shed 
its  bark  and,  purged  of  London  vileness,  broke  in  May  fresh 
and  green  and  beautiful.  In  October  more  leaves  pattered 
down,  more  leaves  raced  along  the  gutters  than  on  the  night 
of  Jenny's  birth.  The  gas-jets  burned  more  steadily  in  a 
mantle  of  incandescent  light.  This  method  of  illumination  pre- 
vailed indoors  as  well  as  outside,  shedding  arid  and  sickly 
gleams  over  the  front-parlor  of  Number  Seventeen,  shining, 
livid  and  garish,  in  the  narrow  hall.  The  knob  was  still  miss- 
ing from  the  bedstead,  and  for  seventeen  years  Charlie  had 
promised  to  get  a  new  one.  Charlie  himself  had  changed  very 
slightly.  He  still  worked  for  the  same  firm  in  Kentish  Town. 
He  still  frequented  the  "Masonic  Arms."  He  cared  less  for 
red  neckties  and  seemed  smaller  than  of  old.  Yet  he  could 
drink  more.  If  his  hair  was  thinner,  his  eyebrows,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  more  bushy,  because  he  blew  off  his  old  ones 
in  the  course  of  an  illustrated  lecture  on  the  management  of 
gas-stoves.  For  the  constant  fingering  of  his  ragged  mous- 
tache, he  substituted  a  pensive  manipulation  of  his  exceptional 
eyebrows. 

Mr.  Vergoe  was  dead,  and  most  of  his  property  adorned 
his  granddaughter's  room  in  Cranbourne  Street.  She  was  still 
a  second-line  girl  in  the  Corps  de  Ballet  of  the  Orient  Palace 


I  o  2  Carnival 

of  Varieties.  Jenny,  however,  possessed  the  picture  of  the 
famous  dead  Columbine.  It  hung  above  the  bed  she  shared  with 
May,  beside  a  memorial  card  of  the  donor  set  in  a  shining 
black  Oxford  frame.  The  room  itself  grew  smaller  every  year. 
Jenny  could  not  imagine  that  once  to  Edie  and  herself  it  had 
been  illimitable.  Nowadays  it  seemed  to  be  all  mahogany 
wardrobe,  and  semicircular  marble-topped  washstand  and  toilet- 
table  and  iron  bedstead.  On  the  door  were  many  skirts  and 
petticoats.  On  the  walls  were  shrivelled  fans  with  pockets 
that  held  curl-papers  mostly.  There  was  also  a  clouded  pho- 
tograph of  Alfie,  Edie,  Jenny  and  May,  of  which  the  most 
conspicuous  feature  was  the  starched  frills  of  Jenny,  those  his- 
toric frills  that  once,  free  of  petticoats,  had  seemed  a  talisman 
to  masculinity.  The  toilet-table  was  inhabited  by  a  collection 
of  articles  that  presented  the  most  sudden  and  amazing  con- 
trasts. Next  to  a  comb  that  might  easily  have  been  rescued 
from  a  dustbin  was  a  brush  backed  with  silver  repousse.  Be- 
side seven  broken  pairs  of  nail-scissors  was  a  scent-bottle  with 
golden  stopper.  Jenny's  nightgown  was  daintily  ribboned  and 
laced,  and  looked  queerly  out  of  place  on  the  pock-marked 
quilt. 

Mrs.  Purkiss  still  visited  her  sister,  but  Jenny  was  not  al- 
lowed to  associate  with  Percy  or  Claude,  both  more  pasty- 
faced  than  ever,  because  Percy  was  going  to  be  a  missionary 
and  Claude  was  suspected  of  premature  dissipation,  having  been 
discovered  kissing  the  servant  in  the  bathroom. 

Mrs.  Raeburn,  in  the  jubilee  of  her  age,  was  still  a  hand- 
some woman,  and  was  admired  even  by  Jenny  for  her  smart- 
ness. She  still  worried  about  the  future  of  her  children.  She 
was  more  than  ever  conscious  of  her  husband's  inferiority  and 
laughed  over  most  of  the  facts  of  her  life.  May's  back,  how- 
ever, and  Jenny's  perpetual  riotousness  caused  her  many  mis- 
givings. But  Alfie  was  doing  well,  and  Edie  seemed  happy, 
making  dresses  over  at  Brixton.  There  had  been  no  recurrence 
of  Mr.  Timpany,  and  she  now  viewed  that  episode  much  as 
she   would  have  regarded   a   trifling  piece   of  domestic  negli- 


L^ife^  Art  and  Love  103 

gence.  As  for  the  Miss  Horners,  their  visit  had  long  faded 
absolutely  from  her  mind.  It  would  have  taken  a  very  great  emo- 
tional crisis  to  inspire  such  another  speech  as  she  made  to  them 
seventeen  years  ago.  Charlie  still  snored  beside  her,  as  he  had 
snored  in  sequel  to  seven  or  eight  thousand  nightly  undress- 
ings. She  still  saw  to  the  washing,  added  up  the  accounts, 
bought  a  new  dress  in  the  spring  and  a  new  bonnet  in  the 
autumn.  She  still  meant  to  read  the  paper  this  week,  but 
never  had  time,  and  every  night  she  hoped  that  all  would  go 
smooth.  This  habit  of  hope  was  to  her  what  the  candle-lit 
chapter  of  a  Bible  with  flower-stained  pages  or  counterpane 
prayers  or  dreams  of  greatness  are  to  minds  differently  consti- 
tuted. Her  life  was  by  no  means  drab,  for  she  went  often  to 
the  theater,  and  occasionally  to  the  saloon  bar  of  a  discreet 
public-house,  where,  in  an  atmosphere  of  whisky  and  Morocco 
leather,  she  would  sometimes  listen  to  Mrs.  Purkiss's  doubts  of 
Jenny's  behavior,  but  more  often  tell  diverting  tales  of  Charlie. 

Such  was  Hagworth  Street,  when,  on  a  cold  Sunday  in  the 
front  of  May,  Edie  came  over  from  Brixton.  She  looked 
pale  and  anxious  as  she  sat  for  a  while  in  the  kitchen  twisting 
black  kid  gloves  round  her  fingers. 

"How's  Brixton,  Edie?"  asked  her  mother. 

"Grand." 

"You've  not  been  up  to  see  us  for  a  long  time." 

"No-0-0,"  agreed  the  eldest  daugliter. 

"Busy?" 

"Not  so  very.  Only  you  never  know  when  you  will  be.  I'll 
go  upstairs  and  take  my  things  off.  Come  with  us  Jenny," 
she  said,  turning  to  her  sister. 

"There's  a  cheek.     Whatever  next?" 

"Oh,  you  are  hateful !     Come  on  up." 

Jenny,  with  every  appearance  of  unwillingness,  followed  Edie 
upstairs,  and  flung  herself  down  on  the  bed  they  had  once 
shared. 

"Don't  be  all  night,"  she  protested,  as  she  watched  Edie 
staring  aimlessly  at  herself  in  tlie  glass. 


1 04  Carnival 

"Jenny,"  said  the  latter  suddenly,  "I  done  it." 

"Done  what?" 

"Myself,  I  suppose." 

"What  d'ye  mean?" 

"You  know,"  said  Edie. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know,  that's  why  I'm  asking." 

"You  remember  that  fellow  I  was  going  about  with?" 

"Bert  Harding?" 

"Yes,   Bert." 

"You're  never  going  to  marry  him,  Edie?" 

"I  got  to — if  I  can." 

Jenny  sat  up  on  the  bed. 

"You  don't  mean " 

"That's  right,"  said  Edie. 

"Whatever  made  you?" 

"I  am  a  fool,"  said  Edie  helplessly. 

"Whatever  will  Alfie  say?"  Jenny  wondered. 

"What's  it  got  to  do  with  Alfie?" 

"I  don't  know,  only  he's  very  particular.  But  this  Bert  of 
yours,  I  suppose  he  will  marry  you?" 

"He  says  so.     He  says  nothing  wouldn't  stop  him." 

"Are  you  mad  to  marry  him?" 

"I  must." 

"But  you  don't  want  to?" 

"I  wouldn't — not  if  I  hadn't  got  to.  I  wouldn't  marry 
anybody  for  a  bit." 

"I  wouldn't  anyhow,"  said  Jenny  decidedly. 

"Don't  talk  silly.     I've  got  to." 

"Oh,  I  do  think  it's  a  shame.  A  pretty  girl  like  you,  Edie. 
Men!     Can  he  keep  you? — comfortable  and  all  that?" 

"He's  got  enough,  and  he  expects  to  make  a  bit  more  soon, 
and  then  there's  my  dressmaking." 

"Men!"  declared  Jenny.  "No  men  for  me.  I  wouldn't 
trust  any  man." 

"Don't  say  nothing  to  mother  about  it." 

"As  if  I  should." 


L,ifey  Art  and  Love  105 

The  two  sisters  went  downstairs. 

"I'll  bring  him  over  soon,"  said  Edie. 

"And  I'll  properly  tell  him  off,"  said  Jenny. 

A  month  went  by,  and  Mr.  Albert  Harding  had  many  im- 
portant engagements.  Another  month  went  by  and  Edie  be- 
gan to  fret. 

Jenny  went  over  to  Brixton  to  see  her  sister. 

"Looks  as  if  this  marriage  was  only  a  rumor,"  she  said. 

"He  hasn't  got  the  time,  not  for  a  week  or  two." 

"What?"  exclaimed  Jenny. 

"He's  going  to  take  me  to  the  Canterbury  to-morrow.  He's 
all  right,  Jenny.     Only  he's  busy.     He  is,  really." 

Jenny,  jolting  homewards  in  the  omnibus  that  night,  won- 
dered what  ought  to  be  done.  Although  she  felt  to  the  full 
the  pity  of  a  nice  girl  like  Edie  being  driven  into  a  hasty  mar- 
riage, no  alternative  presented  itself  clearly.  She  thought  with 
quickening  heart,  so  terrible  was  the  fancy,  how  she  would  act 
in  Edie's  place.  She  would  run  away  out  of  the  world's  eyes, 
out  of  London. 

Yet  Edie  did  not  seem  to  mind  so  much. 

The  malignity  of  men  enraged  her.  The  selfishness  and 
grossness  sickened  her.  Boys  were  different;  but  men,  with 
their  conceit  and  lies,  were  beasts.  They  should  never  make 
a  fool  of  her.  Never.  Never.  Then  she  wondered  if  her 
mother  had  been  compelled  to  marry.  On  no  other  basis 
could  her  father  be  explained.     Men  were  all  alike. 

Bert  Harding,  greasy,  dark-eyed,  like  a  dirty  foreigner. 
He  was  nice-looking,  after  a  fashion,  yes,  but  even  more  con- 
ceited than  most  men.    And  Edie  had  got  to  marry  him. 

Alfie  was  on  the  doorstep  when  she  reached  home. 

"You?"  she  said. 

"Come  over  for  the  night.  Got  some  business  in  Islington 
to-morrow  morning." 

"Alfie,  you  know  Bert  Harding?" 

"Yes." 

"You've  got  to  make  him  marry  Edie." 


io6  Carnival 

"I'll  smash  his  face  in  if  he  don't." 

"They'll  be  at  the  Canterbury  to-morrow  night." 

It  was  a  poor  fight  in  the  opinion  of  the  Westminster  Bridge 
Road.  Bert  was  overmatched.  He  was  perfectly  willing  to 
marry  Edie  at  once,  as  it  happened,  but  Jenny  enjoyed  seeing 
one  of  his  dark  eyes  closed  up  by  her  brother.  Alfie,  having 
done  his  duty,  never  spoke  to  Bert  or  Edie  again. 

"However  could  she  have  been  so  mad,"  said  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn.  "Soft!  Soft!  That's  you,"  she  went  on,  turning  on 
her  husband. 

"Oh,  of  course  it's  me.     Everything's  me,"  said  Charlie. 

"Yes,  it  is  you.  You  can't  say  no  to  a  glass  of  beer  and 
Edie  can't  say  no  to  a  man." 

"What  would  you  have  done,  mother,"  asked  Jenny,  "if 
Edie's  Bert  had  gone  away  and  left  her?" 

"She'd  never  have  come  inside  my  house  again — not  ever 
again." 

"You're  funny." 

"Funny?"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "You  try  and  be  funny, 
and  see  what  happens." 

"Who  cares?"  said  Jenny.  "It  wouldn't  trouble  me.  I'm 
sick  of  this  dog's  island.  But  men.  Whatever  next?  Don't 
you  imagine  I'll  let  any  man Not  much." 

"Don't  you  be  too  sure,  Mrs.  Clever,"  said  the  mother. 

"But  I  am.     I'm  positive.     Love!     There's  nothing  in  it." 

"Hark  at  her,"  jeered  Charlie. 

Jenny  lay  awake  in  a  fury  that  night.  One  after  another, 
man  in  his  various  types  passed  across  the  screen  of  her  mind. 
She  saw  them  all.  The  crimson-jointed,  fishy-eyed  Glasgow 
youths  winked  at  her  once  more.  The  complacent  subalterns 
of  Dublin  dangled  their  presents  and  waited  to  be  given  her 
thanks  and  kisses.  Old  men,  from  the  recess  of  childish  mem- 
ories, rose  up  again  and  leered  at  her.  Her  own  father,  small 
and  weak  and  contemptible,  pottered  across  the  line  of  her 
mental  vision.  Bert  Harding  was  there,  his  bLick  boot-button 
eyes  glittering.    And  to  that  her  sister  had  surrendered  herself, 


luife^  Art  and  Love  107 

to  be  pawed  and  mauled  about  and  boasted  of.  Ugh !  Sud- 
denly in  the  middle  of  her  disgust  Jenny  thought  she  heard 
a  sound  under  the  bed. 

"Oo— er,  May!"  she  called  out.     "May!" 

"Whatever  is  it,  you  noisy  thing?" 

"Oo — er,  there's  a  man  under  the  bed!  Oh,  May,  wake  up, 
else  we  shall  all  be  murdered!" 

"Who  cares?"  said  May.     "Go  to  sleep." 

And  just  then  the  Raeburns'  big  cat,  tired  of  his  mouse- 
hole,  came  out  from  underneath  the  bed  and  walked  slowly 
across  the  room. 


chapter    X:    Drury    Ljune  and   Covent 
Garden 

TO  compensate  Jennj'  for  her  disappointment  over  Co- 
vent  Garden,  Madame  Aldavini  secured  a  place  for 
her  in  the  Drury  Lane  pantomime.  She  was  no 
longer  to  be  the  most  attractive  member  of  an  attractive  quar- 
tette, but  one  of  innumerable  girls  who  changed  several  times 
during  the  evening  into  amazingly  complicated  dresses,  designed 
not  to  display  individual  figures,  but  to  achieve  broad  effects 
of  color  and  ingenuity. 

Straight  lines  were  esteemed  above  dancing,  straight  lines  of 
Frenchmen  or  Spaniards  in  the  Procession  of  Nations,  straight 
lines  of  Lowestoft  or  Dresden  in  the  Procession  of  Porcelain, 
straight  lines  of  Tortoise-shell  Butterflies  or  Crimson-under- 
wing  Moths  in  the  Procession  of  Insects.  Jenny's  gay  deep 
eyes  were  obscured  by  tricolor  flags  or  the  spout  of  a  teapot 
or  the  disproportionate  antennae  of  a  butterfly.  There  was  no 
individual  grace  of  movement  in  swinging  down  the  stage  in 
the  middle  of  a  long  line  of  undistinguished  girls.  If  the  audi- 
ence applauded,  they  applauded  a  shaft  of  vivid  color,  no  more 
enthusiastically  than  they  would  have  clapped  an  elaborate 
arrangement  of  limelight.  Everything  was  sacrificed  to  the 
cleverness  of  a  merely  inventive  mind.  More  than  ever  Jenny 
felt  the  waste  of  academic  instruction  in  her  art.  She  had  been 
learning  to  dance  for  so  many  years,  and  there  she  was  beside 
girls  who  could  neither  dance  nor  move,  girls  who  had  large 
features  and  showy  legs  and  so  much  cubic  space  for  spangles. 

1 08 


Drury  Lane  a?id  Covent  Garden    109 

But  if  her  personality  did  not  carry  over  the  footlights  and 
reach  the  miglity  audience  of  Drury  Lane,  behind  the  scenes  it 
gradually  detached  itself  from  the  huge  crowd  of  girls.  Great 
comedians  with  great  salaries  condescended  to  find  out  her 
name.  Great  principal  boys  with  great  expanses  of  chest 
nodded  at  her  over  furs.  Dainty  principal  girls  with  dainty 
tiers  of  petticoats  smiled  and  said  good  evening  in  their  minc- 
ing) genteel,  principal  girl  voices.  Even  the  stage  doorkeeper 
never  asked  her  name  more  than  once.  Everybody  knew  Jenny 
Pearl,  except  the  public.  So  many  people  told  her  she  was 
sure  to  get  on  that  she  began  to  be  ambitious  again,  and  used 
to  go,  without  being  pressed,  to  Madame  Aldavini's  for  prac- 
tice. The  latter  was  delighted  and  prophesied  a  career — a 
career  that  should  date  from  her  engagement  (a  real  engage- 
ment this  time)  at  Covent  Garden  in  the  spring. 

Jenny's  popularity  at  the  theater  made  her  more  impatient 
than  ever  of  home.  She  bore  less  and  less  easily  her  mother's 
attempts  to  steer  her  course. 

"You'll  come  to  grief,"  Mrs.  Raeburn  warned  her. 

"I  don't  think  so." 

"A  nice  mess  Edie  made  of  things." 

"I'm  not  Edie.     I'm  not  so  soft." 

"Why  you  can't  meet  some  nice  young  chap,  and  settle  down 
comfortable  with  a  home  of  your  own,  I  can't  think." 

"Like  Edie,  I  suppose,  and  have  a  pack  of  kids.  One  after 
another.  One  after  another.  And  a  husband  like  Bert,  so 
shocking  jealous  he  can't  see  her  look  at  another  man  without 
going  on  like  a  mad  thing.     Not  this  little  girl." 

Jenny  never  told  her  mother  that  half  the  attraction  of 
boys'  society  nowadays  lay  in  the  delight  of  making  fools  of 
them.  If  she  had  told  her  Mrs.  Raeburn  might  not  have  un- 
derstood. Jenny  was  angry  that  her  mother  should  suspect 
her  of  being  fast.  She  was  sure  of  her  own  remoteness  from 
passionate  temptation.  She  gloried  in  her  security.  She  could 
not  imagine  herself  in  love,  and  laughed  heartily  at  girls  who 
did.     She  was  engaged  to  sixteen  boys  in  one  year,  to  not  one 


1 1  o  Carnival 

of  whom  was  vouchsafed  the  light  privilege  of  touching  her 
cheeks.  Thev  presented  her  with  cheap  jewelry,  which  she 
never  returned  on  the  decease  of  affection,  and  scarcely  wore 
during  its  short  existence.  It  was  put  away  in  a  cigar-box  in 
a  tangled  heap  of  little  petrified  hearts. 

Mrs.  Raeburn,  however,  who  beheld  in  these  despised  youths 
a  menace  to  her  daughter's  character,  was  never  tired  of  din- 
ning into  her  ears  the  tale  of  Edith's  disaster.  The  more  she 
scolded,  the  more  she  held  a  watch  in  her  hand  when  Jenny 
came  back  from  the  theater,  the  more  annoying  was  Jenny, 
the  longer  did  she  delay  her  evening  home-comings. 

The  fact  that  Bert  and  Edie  had  settled  down  into  com- 
monplace married  life  did  not  make  her  regard  more  kindly 
the  circumstance-impelled  conjunction.  She  reproduced  in  her 
mental  view  of  the  result  something  of  her  mother's  emotion 
immediately  before  her  own  birth.  Long  ago  Mrs.  Raeburn 
had  settled  down  into  an  unsatisfied  contentment ;  long  ago  she 
had  renounced  extravagance  of  hope  or  thought,  merely  keep- 
ing a  hold  on  laughter;  but  Jenny  felt  vaguely  the  waste  of 
life,  the  waste  of  love,  the  waste  of  happiness  which  such  a 
marriage  as  Edie's  suggested.  She  could  not  have  formulated 
her  impressions.  She  had  never  been  taught  to  co-ordinate 
ideas.  Her  mind  was  a  garden  planted  with  rare  shrubs  whose 
labels  had  been  destroyed  by  a  careless  gardener,  whose  indi- 
vidual existence  was  lost  in  a  maze  of  rank  weeds.  Could  the 
Fates  have  given  her  a  rich  revenge  for  the  waste  of  her  intelli- 
gence, Jenny  should  have  broken  the  heart  of  some  prominent 
member  of  the  London  School  Board,  should  have  broken  his 
heart  and  wrecked  his  soul,  herself  meanwhile  blown  on  by 
fortunate  gales  to  Elysium. 

May  was   often   told  of  her  sister's  crusade,   of  the  slain 
suitors  too  slow  to  race  with  Atalanta. 

"Men  are  fools,"  Jenny  proclaimed. 

"Did  you  see  Fred  to-night?" 

"Yes;  he  saw  me  home." 

"What  did  he  say?" 


Drury  h,ane  and  Covent  Garden    1 1 1 

"Nothing  much.  I  told  him  not  to  talk  because  he  got  on 
my  nerves,  and  I  wanted  to  think  about  my  new  costume  for 
the  spring." 

"Didn't  he  mind?" 

"I  can't  help  his  troubles.     He  asked  if  he  might  kiss  me." 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"I  told  him  after  the  next  turning,  and  every  time  we  come 
to  the  next  turning  I  told  him  the  next,  till  we  got  to  our 
gate.  I  said  good  night,  and  he  said,  'What  about  my  kiss?' 
I  said,  'There's  a  cheek;  you  don't  want  much';  and  he  said, 
'I  give  you  a  brooch  last  week,  Jenny';  and  I  said,  'There's 
your  brooch,'  and  I  threw  it  down." 

"What  did  he  do?" 

"He  couldn't  do  much.     I  trod  on  it  and  ran  in." 

"Somebody'U  shoot  you  one  day,"  prophesied  May. 

"Who  cares?  Besides,  they  haven't  got  no  pluck.  Men  are 
walking  cigarettes,  that's  what  men  are." 

Drury  Lane  pantomime  came  to  an  end. 

"And  a  good  job,"  said  Jenny,  "for  it  isn't  a  pantomime  at 
all ;  it's  more  of  a  Lord  Mayor's  show." 

Jenny  now  had  to  rehearse  hard  for  the  ballet  at  Covent 
Garden,  but  there  was  still  plenty  of  time  in  the  lengthening 
spring  dusks  with  their  silver  stars  and  luminous  horizons,  to 
fool  plenty  of  men.  There  was  a  quarrelsome  interlude  with 
Alfie  on  this  account.  The  latter  had  rashly  presented  one 
of  his  own  friends  for  Jenny's  sport.  The  friend  had  spent 
most  of  his  income  on  chocolates  and  pit-stalls,  and  at  one 
swoop  a  whole  week's  salary  on  a  garnet  bracelet. 

"Look  here,"  said  Alfie,  "don't  you  get  playing  your  tricks 
on  any  of  my  friends,  because  I  won't  have  it." 

"Hark  at  him.  Hark  at  Alfred  Proud.  As  if  your  friends 
were  better  than  anyone  else's." 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  have  fellows  say  my  sister's  hot 
stuflF." 

"Who  did?" 

"Never  mind  who  did.    Somebody  said  it." 


112  Carnival 

"Arthur?" 

Arthur  was  the  melancholy  Romeo  introduced  by  AIHe. 

"Somebody  said  you  was  to  Arthur." 

"And  what  did  he  do?" 

"He  was  quite  disgusted.     He  walked  away." 

"Didn't  he  have  a  fight  over  it?" 

"No.  He  said  he  would  have  done,  only  you  treated  him 
so  off-hand." 

"Well,  he  needn't  come  whistling  outside  for  me  no  more." 

"You're  not  going  to  chuck  him?" 

"Chuck  him?  I  never  had  him.  He  worried  me  to  go 
out  with  him.     I  didn't  want  to  go." 

"You'll  get  a  bullet  in  your  chest  one  of  these  days.  You'll 
get  shot." 

"Not  by  one  of  your  massive  friends." 

"Why  not?" 

"Why,  there  isn't  hardly  one  of  'em  as  would  have  the 
pluck  to  hold  a  pistol,  and  not  one  as  would  have  the  money 
to  buy  one." 

"Well,  don't  say  I  never  told  you." 

"You  and  your  friends'  pistols!" 

With  the  pride  and  insolence  of  maiden  youth,  Jenny  took 
the  London  streets.  Through  the  transient  April  rains  she 
came  from  Islington  to  Covent  Garden  every  day.  From 
King's  Cross  she  rode  on  the  green  omnibus  that  jogged  by 
the  budding  elms  of  Brunswick  Square.  Down  Guilford  Street 
she  rode  and  watched  its  frail  inhabitants  coming  home  with 
their  parcels  of  ribbons  and  laces.  Through  Great  Queen 
Street  into  Long  Acre  she  came,  sitting  along  on  the  front  seat 
of  the  green  omnibus  more  like  a  rosy  lily  now  than  a  Laf 
France  rose — down  Long  Acre  till  she  came  to  Bow  Street, 
through  which  she  would  run  to  the  theater  past  the  groups 
of  porters  who  nodded  and  smiled  at  her,  for  they  soon  recog- 
nized the  swift  one  running  through  the  April  rains. 

Italian  opera  appealed  to  Jenny  most.  She  did  not  care 
greatly  for  "Tannhauser,"  thinking  the  Venusberg  ballet  very 


Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden    113 

poor  and  Venus  herself  a  sight.  Teutonic  extravagance 
affected  her  with  a  slight  sense  of  discomfort  as  of  being  placed 
too  near  trombones.  Her  training  as  a  dancer  had  begotten 
a  feeling  of  meticulous  form  which  the  expansive  harmonies  of 
Wagner  disconcerted.  Jenny  did  not  enjoy  suffering  a  sea- 
change.  Novelty  and  strangeness  were  to  her  merely  peculiar. 
Strauss  would  have  bored  her,  not  as  Brahms  might  have 
bored  her  to  somnolence,  but  as  an  irritating  personality  bores 
one  to  rudeness  or  sudden  flight.  To  speculate  how  far  it 
might  have  been  advisable  to  hang  her  intelligence  with  Gothic 
tapestries  is  not  worth  while.  Probably  the  imposition  of  deco- 
rated barbarism  on  her  lucid  and  sensitive  enjoyment  of  Verdi 
would  have  obscured  the  small  windows  of  her  soul  with 
gloomy  arras.  Notwithstanding  her  education  at  the  board 
school,  she  had  a  view,  and  it  was  better  she  should  preserve  an 
instinct  for  a  sanity  that  wms  sometimes  pathos  rather  than,  in 
the  acquirement  of  an  epileptic  appreciation,  she  should  lose 
what  was,  after  all,  a  classical  feeling  in  her  sensuous  love  of 
obvious  beauty. 

The  sugar-plums  of  Italian  opera  melted  innocently  in  her 
mouth,  leaving  behind  them  nothing  but  a  memory  of  sweet- 
ness, as  one  steps  from  a  garden  of  shaded  bird-song  with  a 
thought  of  music.  Wagner  was  more  intoxicating,  but  be- 
queathed no  limpid  exultation  to  the  heart  of  the  wearied  lis- 
tener. Moreover,  she  had  a  very  real  sense  of  being  a  square 
peg  in  a  round  hole  when  she  and  the  other  minions  of  Venus 
tripped  round  the  frequent  rocks  of  Venusberg.  It  was  as  if 
a  confectioner  had  stuck  a  shepherdess  of  pink  icing  on  the  top 
of  a  plum-pudding.  Jenny  felt,  in  her  own  words,  that  it  was 
all  unnatural.  There  was  nothing  of  Walpurgis  in  their 
stereotyped  allurement.  It  was  Bobbing  Joan  in  Canterbury 
Close.  The  violins  might  wail  through  the  darkened  opera 
house,  but  an  obese  Tannhiiuser  caught  by  the  wiles  of  an 
adipose  Venus  during  the  inexpressive  seductions  of  an  Italian 
ballet  was  silly ;  the  poses  to  be  sustained  were  fatiguing  and 
ineffective.     More  fatiguing  still  was  Jenny's  almost  unendur- 


114  Carnival 

able  waiting  as  page  while  the  competitors  sang  to  Elizabeth. 
There  were  four  pages  in  purple  velvet  tunics.  Jenny  looked 
her  part,  but  the  other  three  looked  like  Victoria  plums.  The 
one  scene  in  German  opera  that  she  really  enjoyed  was  the  Val- 
kyries' ride,  when  she  and  a  few  selected  girls  were  strapped 
high  up  to  the  enchanted  horses  and  rocked  exhaustingly 
through  the  terrific  clamor. 

But  these  excursions  into  Gothic  steeps  among  the  dis- 
traught populations  of  the  north  were  not  the  main  feature 
of  the  opera  season.  They  were  a  tour  de  force  of  rocks  in  a 
dulcet  enclosure.  Over  Covent  Garden  hung  the  magic  of  an 
easy  and  opulent  decoration.  It  sparkled  from  the  tiaras  in 
the  grand  circle.  It  flashed  from  the  tie-pins  of  the  basses, 
from  the  rings  of  the  tenors.  It  breathed  on  the  oceanic 
bosoms  of  the  contraltos.  It  trembled  round  the  pleated  hips 
of  the  sopranos.  Everything  was  fat — a  pasha's  comfortable 
dream. 

Jenny,  being  little  and  svelte,  was  distressed  by  the  preva- 
lent sumptuousness.  A  fine  figure  began  to  seem  a  fine  ambi- 
tion, 

"My  dear  child,  you  are  thin,"  some  gracious  prima  donna 
would  murmur  richly  just  before  she  tripped  on  to  the  stage 
to  play  consumptive  Mimi. 

Jenny  could  not  see  that  she  was  advancing  to  fame  at 
Covent  Garden.  Nor  was  she,  indeed,  but  Madame  Aldavini 
tried  to  console  her  by  insisting  upon  the  valuable  experience 
and  pointing  out  the  products  of  success  that  surrounded  her. 
Covent  Garden  was  only  a  stepping-stone,  Madame  reminded 
her. 

Here  she  was  at  seventeen  without  a  chance  to  display  her 
accomplishments.  It  was  more  acting  than  dancing  at  Covent 
Garden.  Jenny,  too,  was  always  chosen  for  such  voiceless 
parts  as  were  important.  Some  of  these  she  did  not  like.  In 
Rigoletto,  for  instance,  Previtale,  the  great  singer,  expressed 
a  wish  that  she  should  play  the  girl  in  the  sack  whom  he  was 
to  fondle.     Jenny  did  not  like  being  fondled.     Other  girls 


Drury  L,ane  and  Covent  Garden    115 

would  have  loved  the  conspicuous  attractions  of  Previtale,  but 
Jenny  thought  his  breath  was  awful,  as  indeed  it  was. 

Her  principal  friend  at  Covent  Garden  was  a  girl  called 
Irene,  or  rather  spelled  Irene,  for  she  was  always  called  Ireen. 
Irene  Dale  was  a  mixture  of  the  odd  and  the  ordinary  in 
her  appearance.  At  first  glance  she  seemed  the  commonplace 
type  produced  in  hundreds  by  English  coulisses.  Perhaps  the 
expression  of  her  face  in  repose  first  suggested  a  possibility  of 
distinction.  The  intensely  blue  eyes  in  that  circumstance  had 
a  strange,  listless  ardor,  as  if  she  were  dreaming  of  fiery  mo- 
ments fled  long  ago.  The  blue  eyes  were  enhanced  by  hair, 
richly  brown  as  drifted  leaves  under  the  sunlight.  Her  mouth 
was  prettiest  when  she  was  being  pleasantly  teased.  Her  nose 
came  to  an  end,  and  then  began  again.  Her  chin  was  deeply 
cleft  and  her  complexion  full  of  real  roses.  In  the  com- 
pany of  Jenny,  Irene  gave  an  impression  of  slowness;  not  that 
Jenny,  except  when  late  for  rehearsal,  ever  seemed  in  a  hurry, 
but  with  her  there  was  always  the  suggestion  of  a  tremulous 
agility.  Irene  had  been  at  Madame  Aldavini's  school,  where 
she  and  Jenny  in  their  childhod  had  wasted  a  considerable 
amount  of  time  in  romping,  but,  since  they  never  happened  to 
go  on  tour  together,  they  never  achieved  a  girlish  friendship 
until  at  Covent  Garden  they  found  themselves  dressing  next 
to  each  other. 

Jenny  tried  to  inspire  Irene  with  the  hostility  to  men  felt 
by  herself.  But  Irene,  although  she  enjoyed  the  lark,  had 
a  respect  for  men  at  the  bottom  of  it  all,  and  would  not  always 
support  Jenny  in  the  latter's  freely  expressed  contempt.  While 
she  was  at  Covent  Garden,  Irene  met  a  young  man,  unhealthily 
tall,  who  made  much  of  her  and  gave  her  expensive  rings,  and 
for  a  fancy  of  his  own  took  her  to  a  fashionable  milliner's  and 
dressed  her  in  short  skirts.  Jenny  had  heard  something  of 
Irene's  Danby  and  was  greatly  annoyed  by  the  latter's  unsym- 
pathetic influence. 

"Your  Danby,"  she  would  protest.  "Whatever  can  you  see 
in  him?    Long  idiot!" 


1 1 6  Carnival 

"My  Danby's  a  gentleman,"  said  Irene. 

"Well,  I  think  he  looks  terrible.  Why,  he  wears  his  teeth 
outside." 

Then  Jenny,  meeting  Irene  and  her  Danby  in  Leicester 
Square,  beheld  her  friend  in  the  childish  costume. 

"Oh,  sight!"  she  called  out. 

"You  are  rude,"  said  Irene. 

"You're  a  very  rude  little  girl,"  said  Danby;  "but  will  you 
come  and  have  a  drink  with  us?" 

"No,  thanks,"  said  Jenny,  and  passed  on  coldly.  That  even- 
ing she  attacked  Irene  in  the  dressing-room. 

"To  let  a  man  make  such  a  shocking  sight  of  you!" 

"He  likes  to  see  me  in  short  skirts." 

"Whatever  for?     And  those  boots!" 

"He  wants  me  to  marry  him,"  declared  Irene. 

"Marry  you?  That's  only  a  rumor,  young  Irene.  I've  prop- 
erly rumbled  your  Danby.     Marry  you!     I  don't  think." 

"He  is  when  he  comes  back  from  Paris,  and  he  said  you 
were  a  very  bad  example  for  me." 

"Crushed!"  said  Jenny  in  mock  humility.  Then  she  went 
on,  "Yes,  you  and  your  Parises.  Any  old  way,  you  can  tell 
Tin  Ribs  from  me  I  should  be  ashamed  to  make  a  girl  I  was 
fond  of  look  such  a  terrible  sight." 

"His  brother  said  he'd  like  to  be  introduced  to  you." 

"Yes;  I  daresay.  Tin  Ribs  the  Second,  I  suppose.  No, 
thanks,  not  this  little  girl." 

London  deepened  into  summer,  and  the  golden  people  com- 
ing out  of  Covent  Garden  seemed  scattered  with  star  dust 
from  the  prodigal  June  stars,  while  the  high  moon  made  of 
Jenny  a  moonbeam  as,  in  white  pique,  she  sat  in  the  front  of 
the  green  omnibus  going  home. 

These  were  happy  days  at  Covent  Garden,  and  when  the 
season  ended  Jenny  was  sorry.  She  did  not  enjoy  Yarmouth 
with  its  swarming  sands  and  goat-carriages  and  dust  and  fleas 
and  switchback  flung  down  on  the  barren  coast  like  a  mon- 
strous skeleton.    She  was  glad  to  come  back  to  London  in  the 


Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden    117 

effulgence  of  a  fine  September;  glad  to  rehearse  again  for  the 
autumn  opera  season,  and  pleased,  when  that  was  over,  to  re- 
turn to  Drury  Lane  for  the  Christmas  pantomime. 

After  her  second  spring  season  of  opera  was  over  she  and 
Irene  discussed  the  future.  Danby  had  retired  to  Paris  on  his 
business.  His  rings  sparkled  unseen  in  the  safe  of  a  Camden 
Town  pawnbroker,  although  the  whisky  and  soda  which  they 
served  to  buy  had  long  ceased  to  sparkle  for  Mrs.  Dale.  Irene 
said  she  was  tired  of  being  in  three  months  and  out  three 
months. 

"I  think  we  ought  to  go  to  the  Orient,  Jenny." 

"I  don't  care  where  we  go,"  said  Jenny. 

"Well,  let's." 

"All  right.  I'll  meet  you  Camden  Town  station  to-morrow. 
Don't  you  be  late." 

"No  fear." 

"Oh,  no,  Mrs.  Punctual,  you're  never  late!"  scoffed  Jenny. 

"Well,  I  won't  be  to-morrow." 

On  the  following  morning  Jenny  dressed  herself  up  to  im- 
press the  ballet-master  of  the  Orient,  and  arrived  in  good 
time  at  Camden  Town  station.  Irene  was  nowhere  in  sight. 
Jenny  waited  half  an  hour.  People  began  to  stare  at  the 
sprays  of  lilac  in  her  large  round  hat.  Really,  they  were  look- 
ing at  the  blue  facets  of  her  eyes  and  her  delicate,  frowning 
eyebrows.  But  Jenny,  feeling  herself  a-blush,  thought  it  was 
the  lilac,  thought  her  placket  was  undone,  thought  there  was 
a  hole  in  her  stocking,  became  thoroughly  hot  and  self-con- 
scious. 

She  waited  another  blushful  quarter  of  an  hour.  Then, 
thinking  that  Irene  must  surely  have  mistaken  the  meeting- 
place,  she  called  at  the  shop  in  Kentish  Town  where  her  father 
worked  and  asked  him  if  he'd  seen  Irene. 

"Irene  Dale?"  said  Charlie. 

"Yes,  you  know." 

"Haven't  you  seen  her?" 

"No." 


1 1 8         a  Carnival 

"Why,  she  was  in  here  asking  for  you.  She's  been  waiting 
outside  Kentish  Town  Station." 

"That's  Mrs.  Brains  all  over.     Ta-ta!" 

Jenny  dashed  off  to  Kentish  Town,  where  she  caught  Irene 
on  the  verge  of  departure.  Most  of  the  way  to  the  Orient 
they  argued  which  was  right. 

When  they  reached  the  famous  theater  of  varieties,  Irene 
said  she  was  afraid  to  go  in. 

"Who  cares?"  said  Jenny.  "If  they  don't  want  us,  they 
won't  eat  us,  any  way." 

Monsieur  Corontin,  the  Maitre  de  Ballet,  interviewed  them 
m  his  little  room  that  was  hidden  away  at  the  end  of  one  of 
the  innumerable  passages.     He  looked  at  Jenny  curiously. 

"Dance,  please,  miss." 

Jenny  danced  as  well  as  she  could  in  the  diminutive  room. 

"Now,  please,  miss,"  he  said  to  Irene,  who  also  danced. 

"You  are  engaged,"  said  Mr.  Corontin. 

"Both?"  asked  Jenny. 

"Both  of  you." 

They  lost  themselves  several  times  in  the  course  of  their 
descent. 

"What  an  unnatural  place,"  said  Jenny.  "Gee!  How  many 
more  stairs?     I  suppose  we're  ballet  girls  now." 

At  home  that  evening  Charlie  remonstrated  with  his  daugh- 
ter for  intruding  upon  him  at  Kentish  Town. 

*'Don't  come  asking  me  for  your  flash  friends,"  he  said. 
"Why,  the  men  wondered  who  you  were." 

"Didn't  they  know  I  was  your  daughter?" 

"I  tried  to  pretend  you  wasn't,  but  one  of  'em  heard  you 
calling  me  dad." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"What  did  he  say?  He  said,  'Charlie,  is  your  daughter  a 
princess?'  " 

"Well,  you  ought  to  have  been  very  proud,"  said  Jenny. 

"Proud,  with  all  the  men  in  the  shop  laughing  at  me? 
Why,  they'll  think  I've  no  business  to  be  working." 


Drury  h>ane  and  Covent  Garden    119 

"Oh!" 

"And  don't  you  never  recognize  me  in  the  street,"  went  on 
Charlie. 

"Why  ever  not?" 

"Well,  look  at  you ;  look  at  your  hat.  People,  I  know, 
wonders  whatever  on  earth  you  are." 

"Oh,  my  own  father's  ashamed  of  me  now ;  and  what  about 
you?     Beer  and  bed's  all  you  think  about." 

Jenny  thought  she  would  go  and  see  Lilli  Vergoe,  in  C'ran- 
bourne  Street,  and  tell  her  of  the  engagement. 

Lilli  sat  with  her  feet  on  the  mantelpiece,  smoking  a  ciga- 
rette. 

"I've  joined  the  ballet,"  said  Jenny. 

"Where?" 

"At  the  Orient." 

"You  won't  like  it." 

"Who  cares?     I  sha'n't  stay  if  I  don't." 

"Yes,  you  will.  You'll  stay.  Everybody  stays  in  the  Orient. 
I've  stayed  there  twelve  years,  and  I'm  still  a  second-line  girl. 
You'll  stay  twelve  years  and,  if  you  don't  get  fat,  you'll  still 
be  a  second-line  boy." 

"What  about  if   I  get  married?" 

"You'll  still  stay." 

"You'll  give  me  a  headache,  you  and  your  staying.  I  intend 
to  enjoy  myself.    You're  worse  than  a  wet  week,  you  are." 

Jenny  was  standing  by  the  window  looking  down  into  Cran- 
bourne  Street  baking  in   the  July  heat. 

"Isn't  it  shocking  hot?"  said  Lilli. 

"I  think  summer's  simply  lovely,"  Jenny  answered. 


Chapter  XI :   The  Orient  Palace  of  Va- 
rieties 

THE  Orient  Palace  of  Varieties  rose  like  a  cliff  from 
the  drapery  shops  of  Piccadilly.  On  fine  summer 
dusks,  in  a  mist  of  golden  light,  it  possessed  a  certain 
magic  of  gayety;  seemed  to  capture  something  of  the  torch-lit 
merriment  of  a  country  fair.  As  one  loitered  on  the  island, 
lonely  and  meditative,  the  Orient  was  alluring,  blazed  upon 
the  vision  like  an  enchanted  cave,  or  offered  to  the  London 
vi^anderer  a  fancy  of  the  scents  and  glossy  fruits  and  warblers 
of  the  garden  where  Camaralzaman  lost  Badoura;  and  in 
autumn,  stained  by  rosy  sunsets,  the  theater  expressed  the  deli- 
cate melancholy  of  the  season.  But  when  the  rain  dripped 
monotonously,  when  fogs  transformed  the  town,  when  London 
was  London  vast  and  gray,  the  Orient  became  unreal  like  the 
bedraggled  palaces  of  an  exhibition  built  to  endure  for  a  little 
while.  After  all,  it  was  an  exotic  piece  of  architecture,  and 
evoked  an  atmosphere  of  falseness,  the  falseness  of  an  Indian 
gong  in  a  Streatham  hall.  Yet  fifty  years  it  had  stood  without 
being  rebuilt.  In  addition  to  having  seen  two  generations 
pass  away,  something  in  the  character  of  its  entertainment, 
in  the  lavishness  of  its  decoration,  lent  it  the  sacred  perma- 
nence of  a  mausoleum,  the  mausoleum  of  mid-Victorian  amuse- 
ment. 

The  Orient  did  not  march  with  the  times,  rising  from  in- 
significance. It  never  owned  a  chairman  who  announced  the 
willingness  of  each  successive  comedian  to  oblige  with  a  song. 

120 


The  Orient  Palace  of  Varieties  121 

Old  men  never  said  they  remembered  the  Orient  in  the  jolly 
old  days,  for  they  could  not  have  forgotten  it.  In  essentials  it 
remained  the  same  as  ever.  Dancers  had  gone;  beauties  had 
shrivelled ;  but  their  ghosts  haunted  the  shadowy  interior.  The 
silver-footed  coryphees  now  kept  lodging-houses;  the  swan- 
like Ballerinas  wore  elastic  stockings;  but  their  absence  was 
filled  by  others:  they  were  as  little  missed  as  the  wave  that 
has  broken.  The  lean  old  vanities  quizzed  and  ogled  the  frail 
ladies  of  the  Promenade  and  sniffed  the  smoke-wreathed  air 
with  a  thought  of  pleasures  once  worth  enjoyment.  They 
spent  now  an  evening  of  merely  sentimental  dissipation,  but 
because  it  was  spent  at  the  Orient,  not  entirely  wasted;  for 
the  unchanged  theater  testified  to  the  reality  of  their  youth. 
It  may  not  have  been  able  to  rejuvenate  them,  but,  as  by  a 
handkerchief  that  survives  the  departure  of  its  owner,  their 
senses  were  faintly  stimulated. 

The  Orient  was  proud  because  it  did  not  enter  into  compe- 
tition with  any  other  house  of  varieties;  preened  itself  upon 
a  cosmopolitan  programme.  With  the  snobbishness  of  an  old 
city  firm,  it  declined  to  advertise  its  ware  with  eye-arresting 
posters,  and  congratulated  itself  on  the  inability  to  secure  new 
clients.  Foreigners  made  up  a  large  proportion  of  the  audience, 
and  were  apparently  contented  by  equestrian  mistresses  of  the 
haute  ecole,  by  bewildering  assemblages  of  jugglers,  even  by 
continental  mediocrities  for  the  sake  of  hearing  their  native 
tongue.  They  did  not  object  to  interminable  wire-acts,  and 
put  up  with  divination  feats  of  the  most  exhausting  dullness. 
After  all,  these  incidental  turns  must  occur;  but  the  ballets 
were  the  feature  of  the  evening.  For  many  who  visited  the 
Orient,  the  stream  of  prostitutes  ebbing  and  flowing  upon 
the  Promenade  was  enough.  Yet  the  women  of  the  Orient 
Promenade  would  strike  a  cynic  with  uneasiness. 

Under  the  stars,  the  Piccadilly  courtesans  afFect  the  onlooker 
less  atrociously.  Night  lends  a  magic  of  softness  to  their  fret- 
ful beauty.  The  sequins  lose  their  garishness;  the  painted 
faces  preserve  an  illusion  of  reality.     Moonlight  falls  gently 


12  2  Carnival 

on  the  hollow  cheek;  kindles  a  spark  of  youth  in  the  leaden 
eye.  The  Piccadilly  courtesans  move  like  tigers  in  a  tropic 
gloom  with  velvet  blazonries  and  a  stealthy  splendor  that  masks 
the  hunger  driving  them  out  to  seek  their  prey.  On  the 
Orient  Promenade,  the  finer  animalism  has  vanished;  it  was 
never  more  than  superficially  aesthetic.  The  daughters  of 
pleasure  may  still  be  tigers,  but  they  are  naphtha-lit,  pacing 
backwards  and  forwards  in  a  cage.  They  all  appear  alike. 
Their  hats  are  all  too  large,  their  figures  are  too  brutal,  their 
cheeks  too  lifeless.  They  are  automatic  machines  of  lust  wait- 
ing to  be  stirred  into  action  by  pennies. 

Under  the  stars  they  achieve  a  pictorial  romance;  but  on 
the  carpet  of  the  Promenade,  they  are  hard  and  heartless  and 
vile.  Their  eyes  are  coins;  their  hands  are  purses.  At  their 
heels  patter  old  men  like  unhealthy  lap-dogs;  beefy  provincials 
stare  at  them,  their  foreheads  glistening.  Above  all  the  frangi- 
pani  and  patchouli  and  opoponax  and  trefle  incarnat  steals  the 
rank  odor  of  goats.  The  orchestra  thunders  and  crashes  down 
below;  the  comfortable  audience  lean  back  in  the  stalls;  the 
foreigners  jabber  in  the  gallery;  the  Orient  claque  interrupts 
its  euchre  with  hired  applause.  The  corks  pop;  the  soda 
splashes;  money  chinks;  lechery  murmurs;  drunkards  laugh; 
and  down  on  the  stage  Jenny  Pearl  dances. 

The  night  wears  on.  The  women  come  in  continually 
from  the  wet  streets.  They  surge  in  the  cloak-room,  quarrel 
over  carrion  game,  blaspheme,  fight  and  scratch.  A  door  in 
the  cloak-room  (locked  of  course)  leads  into  the  passage  out- 
side the  dressing-room,  where  Jenny  changes  five  or  six  times 
each  night.  Every  foul  oath  and  every  vile  experience  and 
every  detestable  adventure  is  plainly  heard  by  twenty  ladies  of 
the  ballet. 

Dressing-room  number  forty-five  was  a  long,  low  room,  with 
walls  of  whitewashed  brick.  There  was  one  window,  seldom 
opened.  There  was  no  electric  light,  and  the  gas-jets  gave  a 
very  feeble  illumination,  so  feeble  that  everybody  always  put 
on  too   much   grease  paint   in   their  fear  of  losing  an  effect. 


The  Orie?it  Palace  of  Varieties  123 

The  girls  dressed  on  each  side  of  the  room  at  a  wide  deal 
board  with  forms  to  sit  upon.  There  was  a  large  wardrobe  in 
one  corner,  and  next  to  Jenny's  place  an  open  sink.  The  room 
was  always  dark  and  always  hot.  There  were  about  eighty 
stone  stairs  leading  up  to  it  from  the  stage,  and  at  least  half  a 
dozen  ascents  in  the  course  of  the  evening.  The  dresser  was 
a  blowsy  old  Irish  woman,  more  obviously  dirty  than  the  room, 
and  there  were  two  ventilators,  which  gave  a  perpetual  draught 
of  unpleasant  air.  The  inspectors  of  the  London  County  Coun- 
cil presumably  never  penetrated  as  far  as  Room  45,  a  fact 
which  seems  to  show  that  the  extent  of  municipal  interference 
has  been  much  exaggerated. 

The  dressing-rooms  were  half  on  one  side  of  the  stage,  half 
on  the  other.  Those  on  the  side  nearer  to  the  stage-door  were 
less  unpleasant.  The  architect  evidently  believed  in  the  value 
of  first  impressions.  Anybody  venturing  into  either  warren 
without  previous  acquaintanceship  would  have  been  bewildered 
by  the  innumerable  rooms  and  passages,  tucked  away  in  every 
corner  and  branching  off  in  every  direction.  Some  of  the  for- 
mer seemed  to  have  been  inhabited  for  years.  One  in  particu- 
lar contained  an  ancient  piano,  two  daguerrotypes  and  a  heap 
of  mouldering  stufiFs.  It  might  have  been  the  cell  where  years 
ago  a  Ballerina  was  immured  for  a  wrong  step.  It  existed 
like  a  monument  to  the  despair  of  ambition. 

The  Orient  stifled  young  life.  The  Corps  de  Ballet  had  the 
engulfing  character  of  conventual  vows.  When  a  girl  joined 
it,  she  cut  herself  of?  from  the  world.  She  went  there  fresh, 
her  face  a  mist  of  roses,  hope  burning  in  her  heart,  fame  flick- 
ering before  her  eyes.  In  a  few  years  she  would  inevitably  be 
pale  with  the  atmosphere,  with  grinding  work  and  late  hours. 
She  would  find  it  easy  to  buy  spirits  cheaply  in  the  canteen  un- 
derneath the  stage.  She  would  stay  in  one  line,  it  seemed,  for- 
ever.    She  would  not  dance  for  joy  again. 

When  Jenny  went  to  the  Orient  first,  she  did  not  intend 
to  stay  long.  She  told  the  girls  this,  and  they  laughed  at 
her.  She  did  not  know  how  soon  the  heavy  theater  would  be- 


12  4  Carnival 


come  a  habit ;  she  did  not  realize  what  comfort  exists  in  the 
knowledge  of  being  permanentlj'  employed.  But  not  even  the 
Orient  could  throttle  Jenny.  She  was  not  the  daughter 
and  granddaughter  of  a  ballet  girl.  She  had  inherited  no  tra- 
ditions of  obedience.  She  never  became  a  marionette  to  be 
dressed  and  undressed  and  jigged,  horribly  and  impersonally. 
She  yielded  up  her  ambition,  but  she  never  lost  her  personality. 
When,  soon  after  her  arrival,  the  Maitre  de  Ballet  took  her 
in  his  dark  little  corner  and  pinched  her  arm,  she  struck  him 
across  the  mouth,  vowed  she  would  tell  the  manager,  and  burnt 
up  his  conceit  with  her  spitfire  eyes.  He  tried  again  later  on, 
and  Jenny  told  his  wife,  a  yellow-faced,  fat  Frenchwoman. 
Then  he  gave  her  up,  and,  being  an  artist,  bore  her  no  malice, 
but  kept  her  in  the  first  line  of  boys. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  eighty  or  ninety  ladies  of 
the  ballet  were  unhappy.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  very 
happy,  and,  so  far  as  it  accorded  with  the  selfishness  of  a  lim- 
ited company,  they  were  well  looked  after.  The  managing 
director  called  them  "Children,"  and  was  firmly  convinced 
that  he  treated  them  as  children.  Actually,  he  treated  them  as 
dolls,  and  in  the  case  of  girls  well  into  the  thirties,  with  some 
of  the  sentimental  indulgence  lavished  on  old  broken  dolls. 
Perhaps  it  was  the  crowd  of  men  who  waited  every  night  at 
the  end  of  the  long,  narrow  court  that  led  from  Jermyn  Street 
down  to  the  Orient  stage  door,  which  has  helped  to  preserve 
the  vulgar  and  baseles  tradition  of  frailty  still  sedulously  propa- 
gated. Every  night,  about  half-past  eleven,  the  strange  mix- 
ture of  men  waited  for  the  gradual  exodus  of  the  ladies  of  the 
ballet.  A  group  of  men,  inherently  the  same,  had  stood  thus 
on  six  nights  of  the  week  for  more  than  fifty  years. 

They  had  stood  there  with  Dundreary  whiskers,  in  rakish 
full  capes  and  strapped  overalls.  They  had  waited  there  with 
the  mutton-chop  whiskers  and  ample  trousers  of  the  'seventies. 
Down  the  court  years  ago  had  come  the  beauties,  with  their 
striped  stockings  and  swaying  crinolines  and  velvety  chignons. 
Down  the  court  they  had  tripped  in  close-fitting  pleated  skirts 


The  Orient  Palace  of  Varieties  125 

a  little  later,  and  later  still  with  the  protruding  bustles  and 
skin-tight  sleeves  of  the  'eighties.  They  had  taken  the  London 
starlight  with  the  balloon  sleeves  of  the  mid-'nineties.  They 
took  the  starlight  now,  as  sweet  and  tender  as  the  fairs  of 
long  ago.  They  came  out  in  couples,  in  laughing  companies, 
and  sometimes  singly  with  eager,  searching  glances.  They 
came  out  throwing  their  wraps  around  them  in  the  sudden  cool- 
ness of  the  air.  They  lingered  at  the  end  of  the  court  in 
groups  delicate  as  porcelain,  enjoying  the  freedom  and  reunion 
with  life.  Their  talk  was  hushed  and  melodious  as  the  con- 
versation of  people  moving  slowly  across  dusky  lawns.  They 
were  dear  to  the  imaginative  observer.  He  watched  them 
with  pride  and  afifection  as  he  would  have  watched  fishing- 
boats  steal  home  to  their  haven  about  sunset.  Every  night 
they  danced  and  smiled  and  decked  themselves  for  the  pleasure 
of  the  world.  They  rehearsed  so  hard  that  sometimes  they 
would  fall  down  after  a  dance,  crying  on  the  stage  where  they 
had  fallen  from  sheer  exhaustion.  They  were  not  rich.  Most 
of  them  were  married,  with  children  and  little  houses  in  teem- 
ing suburbs.  Many,  of  course,  were  free  to  accept  the  escort 
of  loiterers  by  the  stage-door.  The  latter  often  regarded  the 
ladies  of  the  ballet  as  easy  prey,  but  the  ladies  were  shy  as 
antelopes  aware  of  the  hunter  crawling  through  the  grasses. 
They  were  independent  of  masculine  patronage;  laughed  at  the 
fools  with  their  easy  manners  and  genial  condescension.  They 
might  desire  applause  over  the  footlights,  but  under  the  moon 
they  were  free  from  the  necessity  for  favor.  They  had,  with 
all  its  incidental  humiliations,  the  self-respect  which  a  great 
art  confers.    They  were  children  of  Apollo. 

The  difference  between  the  gorgeousness  of  the  ballet  and 
the  dim  air  of  the  court  was  unimaginable  to  the  blockheads 
outside.  They  had  seen  the  girls  in  crimson  and  gold,  in 
purple  and  emerald,  in  white  and  silver;  they  had  seen  them 
spangled  and  glittering  with  armor;  they  had  heard  the  tinkle 
of  jewelry.  They  had  watched  their  limbs;  gloated  upon  their 
poses.     They  had  caught  their  burning  glances;  brooded  on 


12  6  Carnival 

their  lips  and  eyes  and  exquisite  motion.  Inflamed  by  the 
wanton  atmosphere  of  the  Orient,  they  had  thought  the  ladies 
of  the  ballet  slaves  for  the  delight  of  fools,  but  round  th© 
stage-door  all  their  self  esteem  was  blown  away  like  a  frag- 
ment of  paper  by  a  London  night  wind.  Their  complacent 
selves  by  most  of  the  girls  were  brushed  aside  like  boughs  in 
a  wood.  Some,  Jenny  and  Irene  amongst  them,  would  ponder 
awhile  the  silly  group  and  gravely  choose  a  partner  for  half 
an  hour's  conversation  in  a  cafe.  But  somewhere  close  to 
twelve  o'clock  Jenny  would  fly,  leaving  not  so  much  as  a  glass 
slipper  to  console  her  sanguine  admirer.  Home  she  would  fly 
on  the  top  of  a  tram  and  watch  in  winter  the  scudding  moon 
whipped  by  bare  blown  branches,  in  summer  see  it  slung 
like  a  golden  bowl  between  the  chimney  stacks.  The  jolly 
adventures  of  youth  were  many,  and  the  partnership  of  Jenny 
and  Irene  caused  great  laughter  in  the  dressing-room  when  the 
former  related  each  diverting  enterprise. 

The  tale  of  their  conquests  would  be  a  long  one.  Most  of 
the  victims  were  anonymous  or  veiled  in  the  pseudonym  of  a 
personal  idiosyncrasy.  There  was  Tangerine  Willy,  who  first 
met  them  carrying  a  bag  of  oranges.  There  was  Bill  Hair 
and  Bill  Shortcoat  and  Sop  and  Jack  Spot  and  Willie  Eye- 
brows and  Bill  Fur.  They  all  of  them  served  as  episodes 
mirthful  and  fugitive.  They  were  mulcted  in  chocolates  and 
hansoms  and  cigarettes.  They  danced  attendance,  vainly 
dreaming  all  the  time  of  conquest.  Jenny  held  them  in  fee 
with  her  mocking  eyes,  bewitched  them  with  musical  derision, 
and  fooled  them  as  Hera  fooled  the  passionate  Titan. 

In  winter-time  the  balls  at  Covent  Garden  gave  Jenny  some 
of  the  happiest  hours  of  her  life.  Every  Tuesday  fortnight, 
tickets  were  sent  round  to  the  stage-door  of  the  Orient,  and 
it  was  very  seldom  indeed  that  she  did  not  manage  to  secure 
one.  On  the  first  occasion  she  went  dressed  as  a  little  girl  in 
muslin,  with  a  white  baby  hat  and  white  shoes  and  socks,  and, 
wherever  they  might  attract  a  glance,  bows  of  pink  silk.  When 
the  janitors  saw  her  first,  they  nearly  refused  to  admit  such 


The  Orient  Palace  of  Varieties  127 

youthfulness;  could  not  believe  she  was  really  grown  up;  con- 
sulted anxiously  together  while  Jenny's  slanting  eyes  glittered 
up  to  their  majesties.  They  were  convinced  at  last,  and  she 
enjoyed  herself  very  much  indeed.  She  was  chased  up  the 
stairs  and  round  the  lobby.  She  was  chased  down  the  stairs, 
through  the  supper-room,  in  and  out  of  half  a  dozen  boxes, 
laughing  and  chattering  and  shrieking  all  the  while.  She 
danced  nearly  every  dance.  She  won  the  second  prize.  Three 
old  men  tried  to  persuade  her  to  live  with  them.  Seven  young 
men  vowed  they  had  never  met  so  sweet  a  girl. 

To  the  three  former  Jenny  murmured  demurely: 

"But  I'm  a  good  little  girl;  I  don't  do  those  things." 

And  of  course  they  pointed  out  that  she  was  much  too 
young  to  come  to  so  wicked  a  place  as  Covent  Garden.  And 
of  course,  with  every  good  intention,  they  offered  to  escort 
her  home  at  once. 

With  the  seven  young  men's  admiration  Jenny  agreed. 

"I  am  sweet,  aren't  I?  Oh,  I'm  a  young  dream,  if  you 
only  knew." 

And  as  a  dream  was  she  elusive.  She  gloried  in  her  free- 
dom. She  was  glad  she  was  not  in  love.  She  had  no  wish 
to  do  anything  but  enjoy  herself  to  the  top  of  her  bent.  And 
she  succeeded.  Then  at  half-past  six  o'clock  of  a  raw  Novem- 
ber morning,  she  rumbled  home  to  Hagworth  Street  in  a 
four-wheel  cab  with  five  other  girls — a  heap  of  tangled  lace. 
She  went  upstairs  on  tiptoe.  She  undressed  herself  somehow, 
and  in  the  morning  she  woke  up  to  find  on  each  wrist,  as  testi- 
mony of  the  night's  masquerade,  a  little  pink  bow,  soiled  and 
crumpled. 

She  went  often  after  that  first  visit  and  had  many  adven- 
tures. On  one  occasion  she  fell  in  with  the  handsome  wife  of 
a  Surrey  publican,  and  drove  back  after  breakfast  beside  her 
to  whatever  Surrey  village  Mrs.  Argles  astonished  with  her 
figure  and  finery.  Irene  came,  too,  and  the  girls  went  to  bed 
in  a  dimity-hung  bedroom  and  were  taken  for  a  drive  in  the 
afternoon  and  sat  so  long  in  the  cosy  bar-parlor  watching  the 


12  8  Carnival 

dusk  stealing  through  the  misted  trees  that  they  decided  to 
send  a  telegram  to  the  theater  announcing  their  illness.  Then 
they  stayed  another  night  and  went  for  another  drive,  laugh- 
ing and  chatting  down  the  deep  Surrey  lanes.  After  dinner 
Jenny  went  back  to  Hagworth  Street,  and  had  a  flaming  quar- 
rel with  her  mother,  who  accused  her  of  "going  gay" ;  de- 
manded to  know  how  she  dared  put  in  an  appearance  dressed 
in  another  woman's  clothes;  insisted  that  she  was  to  come 
home  immediately  after  the  theater;  forbade  a  hundred  things, 
and  had  the  door  slammed  in  her  face  for  the  advice.  There 
were  mad  days  as  well  as  spangled  nights.  There  were  days  at 
the  Zoo  with  Bill  Fur,  a  schoolmaster  always  full  of  informa- 
tion until  he  found  his  hat  in  the  middle  of  the  giraffes'  enclos- 
ure, or  perceived  his  gloves  viewed  with  dislike  by  a  cassowary. 
Bill  Fur,  however,  would  gladly  have  lost  more  than  gloves 
or  hat  to  be  free  for  a  while  from  the  Margate  school  where 
he  tnught  delicate  boys  the  elements  of  Latin.  To  himself  he 
was  Don  Juan  in  bravery  of  black  satin  slashed  with  purple. 
To  the  girls  he  was,  as  Jenny  put  in,  a  scream.  To  the  world, 
he  was  a  rather   foolish  middle-aged   schoolmaster. 

Perhaps  it  was  Colonel  Walpole  who  first  suggested  to  Jenny 
that  all  men  were  not  merely  ridiculous.  From  his  seat  in 
the  front  row  of  stalls,  he  perceived  her  charm ;  sent  round  a 
note  to  the  stage  door;  took  her  out  to  supper  and  champagne. 
When  he  found  she  was  a  good  girl,  he  seemed  to  like  herj 
more  tlian  ever,  and  gave  her  tea  in  the  flat  whose  windows 
looked  over  the  sunlit  tree-tops  of  Green  Park.  He  also  gave 
her  some  pretty  dresses  and  hats.  The  other  girls  whispered 
and  giggled  when  Jenny's  back  was  turned.  Her  mother  was 
sharply   inquisitive    and   extremely   suspicious. 

"Who  cares?"  said  Jenny.  "There's  nothing  in  it." 
Colonel  Walpole  took  her  for  long  motor  drives,  gave  her 
salmon  mayonnaise  at  Weybridge,  chicken  mayonnaise  at  Bar- 
net,  salmon  mayonnaise  at  Henley,  chicken  mayonnaise  at  Cob- 
ham,  and  lobster  an  gratin  at  Brighton.  Colonel  Walpole  was 
very  paternal,  and  Jenny  liked  him.      He  had  a  cool,  clean 


The  Orient  Palace  of  Varieties  129 

appearance  and  a  pleasant  voice.  Whatever  may  have  been  his 
ultimate  intentions,  he  behaved  very  well,  and  she  was  sorry 
when  he  went  away  on  a  Tibetan  shooting  expedition. 

"My  friend,  the  Prince,  has  gone  away,"  she  told  the  girls; 
and  "don't  laugh,"  she  added,  "because  I  don't  like  it." 

Jenny  was  nineteen.  The  mark  of  the  Orient  was  not  yet 
visible.  A  few  roses  had  withered,  but  eighteen  months  of  the 
fusty  old  theater  had  been  balanced  by  laughter  outside.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  end  of  her  enjoyment  of  life.  In  essentials 
she  was  younger  than  ever.  Mrs.  Raeburn  worried  ceaselessly; 
but  her  daughter  was  perfectly  well  able  to  look  after  herself. 
Indeed,  the  mistakes  she  made  were  due  to  wisdom  rather  than 
folly.  She  knew  too  much  about  men.  She  had  "properly  rum- 
bled" men.  She  was  too  much  of  a  cynic  to  be  taken  in.  Her 
only  ambition  was  excitement;  and  love,  in  her  opinion,  did 
not  provide  it.  She  was  always  depressed  by  the  sight  of 
lovers.  She  hated  the  permanency  of  emotion  that  their  per- 
petual association  implied.  She  and  Irene  liked  to  choose  a 
pair  from  the  group  of  men  who  waited  by  the  stage  door,  as 
one  picks  out  two  horses  for  a  race.  The  next  evening  the 
pair  of  last  night  would  be  contemptuously  ignored,  and  a  fresh 
couple  dangled  at  the  end  of  a  string  as  long  as  their  antics 
were  novel  enough  to  divert. 

Jenny  still  vowed  she  had  no  intention  of  remaining  at 
the  Orient,  and  if  people  asked  her  about  her  dancing,  she 
mocked. 

"What's  the  good  of  working?  You  don't  get  nothing  for 
it.  I  could  have  danced.  Yes,  once.  But  now.  Well,  I  can 
now,  only  I  don't  want  to.     See?     Besides,  what's  the  good?" 

If  anyone  had  foretold  a  career,  she  would  have  mocked 
louder. 

"You  don't  know  the  Orient ;  I  reckon  they  don't  zL-ant  to 
see  a  girl  get  on  nt  the  Orient.  If  you  make  a  success  in  one 
ballet,  you're  crushed  in  the  next." 

One  morning  Jenny  looked  at  herself  in  the  glass. 

"May,"  she  called  out,  "I   think  if  I   was  to  get  old,   I'd 


130  Carnival 

drown  myself.  I  would  really.  Thirty!  What  a  shocking 
idea!" 

"Why,  you're  only  nineteen." 

"Yes,  I  know,  but  I  shall  be  thirty.  Thirty!  What  an  un- 
natural age!    Who  cares?    Perhaps  I  sha'n't  never  be  thirty." 


chapter  XII:  Growing  Old 

IN  her  twentieth  year,  when  the  Covent  Garden  season 
of  balls  was  over,  the  dread  of  growing  old  sometimes 
affected  Jenny.  It  came  upon  her  in  gusts  of  premoni- 
tion and,  like  a  phantom,  intruded  upon  the  emptiness  of  her 
mind.  The  nervous  strain  of  perpetual  pleasure  had  made  her 
restless  and  insecure.  Day  by  day  she  was  forced  into  a  still 
greater  dependence  on  trivial  amusement,  notwithstanding  that 
every  gratified  whim  added  the  lean  ghost  of  another  dread 
hour  to  haunt  her  memory.  Headaches  overtook  her  more 
easily  now,  and  fits  of  depression  were  more  frequent.  She 
was  vaguely  aware  that  something  could  cure  her  discontent, 
and  once  or  twice  in  moments  of  extreme  weakness  caught 
herself  envying  the  girls  who  seemed  so  happy  with  their  mild 
lovers.  She  began  to  contemplate  the  prospect  of  mating  with 
one  of  the  swains  who  inhabited,  awkwardly  enough,  the  deso- 
lation of  Sunday  evenings.  She  even  went  so  far  as  to  award 
the  most  persistent  an  afternoon  at  the  Hackney  Furnishing 
Company;  but  when,  blushful  and  stammering,  he  discussed 
with  the  shopman  the  comparative  merits  of  brass  and  iron 
bedsteads,  Jenny,  suddenly  realizing  the  futility  of  the  idea, 
fled  from  the  jungle  of  furniture. 

These  negotiations  with  domesticity  drove  her  headlong  into 
a  more  passionate  pursuit  of  folly,  so  that,  with  the  colorless 
shadow  of  mere  matrimony  filling  her  soul,  her  clutch  upon  the 
sweet  present  became  more  feverish.  She  watched  the  adven- 
tures of  girlhood  fall  prettily  about  her;  saw  them  like  unsub- 

13? 


I  3  2  Carnival 

stantial  snowflakes  that  are  effective  only  in  accumulation.  Yet 
the  transitory  lovers  of  the  stage  door  were  beginning  also  to 
become  intolerable.  She  could  not  brook,  so  rlim  nnd  proud 
was  she,  their  immediate  assumption  of  prcprie':o:"h'p.  She 
hated  the  cheapening  of  her  kisses  and  their  im-^e^-.'.'ousness  to 
her  womanhood. 

Where  among  these  eager-handed  wooers  v/as  the  prince  of 
destiny?  Not  he  with  box-pleats  underneath  his  eyes,  nor  he 
with  the  cold,  slick  fingers,  nor  he  peppered  with  blackheads. 
Love  was  a  myth,  a  snare,  a  delusion  of  women,  who  sacrificed 
their  freedom  in  marriage.  She  remembered  how  in  old 
days  Santa  Claus  had  turned  into  her  mother  on  tiptoe.  Love 
was  another  legend.  The  emotion  that  begot  the  fancy  of 
armed  boyhood  mischievous  to  man  was  as  incredible  to  her 
as  the  dimpled  personification  is  to  a  Hyde  Park  materialist. 

Jenny  asked  Irene  if  the  love  of  Danby  had  brought  h^r 
satisfaction.  When  her  friend  said  she  rather  liked  him,  she 
inquired  what  was  the  good  of  it  all. 

"I  think  he's  making  a  proper  fool  of  you.  Why  don't  / 
fall  in  love?  Because  I'm  not  so  soft.  Besides,  you're  not  in 
love.  You're  just  walking  round  5'ourselves  having  a  game 
with  each  other." 

"Oh,  well,  what  of  it?"  said  Irene  sulkily. 

"Don't  be  silly.  I  never  knew  such  a  girl  as  you.  You 
can't  talk  sensible  for  a  minute.  I  want  to  know  what  this 
love  is." 

"You'll  find  out  one  day." 

"Ah,  one  day.  One  day  I  shall  go  and  drown  myself. 
Irene  Dale,  I  think  I'm  funny.  I  do  really.  Sometimes  I  can 
dance  all  over  the  place  and  kick  up  a  shocking  row,  laughing 
and  that.  And  then  I  cry.  Now  what  about?  I  ask  you. 
What  have  I  got  to  cry  about?  Nothing.  I  just  sit  and  cry 
my  eyes  out  over  nothing." 

Jenny  was  beginning  to  take  an  interest  in  herself.  Intro- 
spection was  dawning  on  her  mind.  She  did  not  practice  the 
meditation  of  age,    infirmity  and  death ;   when   these  spectres 


Growing  Old  133 

confronted  her,  she  dismissed  them  as  too  impalpable  to  count. 
Nor  did  she  examine  her  conscience  arduously  like  a  Catholic 
neophyte.  Unreasonable  fits  of  weeping  and  long  headaches 
were,  nevertheless,  very  disconcerting;  and  she  was  bound  to 
search  her  mind  for  the  cause. 

The  first  explanation  that  presented  itself  was  age;  but  she 
was  unwilling  to  admit  the  probability  of  growing  old  at 
twent}-,  and  turned  to  health  for  the  reason.  She  could  not 
honestly  assert  that  she  was  ill.  Then  she  asked  herself  if 
dis:;ppointment  was  the  cause,  and  wondered  whether,  if  she 
were  suddenly  invited  to  head  the  Orient  playbill,  she  would 
be  exhilarated  out  of  tears  forever.  Finally  she  decided, 
breathless  in  the  solitude  of  a  warm  May  dusk,  that  she  wanted 
to  fall  in  love.  Desire,  winged  with  the  scent  of  lilac  blossom, 
stole  in  through  the  sapphire  window.  Desire  flooded  her  soul 
with  ineffable  aspirations.  Desire  wounded  her  heart  as  she 
whispered,  timidly,  faintly,  "darling,  my  darling."  From  that 
moment  she  began  to  seek  the  unknown  lover  in  the  casual 
acquaintance.  She  began  to  imagine  the  electric  light  shining 
in  the  blue  eyes  of  some  newly-met  fellow  was  not  electric 
light  at  all.  She  would  meet  him  on  the  next  day,  and,  be- 
holding him  starkly  dull,  would  declare  again  that  men  were 
"awful."  The  readiness  with  which  they  all  capitulated  puz- 
zled her.  Why  was  she  attractive?  Irene  told  her  she  made 
eyes;  but  this  was  false,  or,  if  she  did  make  eyes,  they  were 
made  unconsciously.  Men  told  her  she  led  them  on.  There 
must  be  some  lure  in  her  personality  fatal  long  before  she 
attempted  to  exercise  it;  for,  though  latterly  she  had  been  de- 
liberately charming  to  most  men  at  first,  she  was  so  very 
ungracious  the  following  day  that  anybody  else  but  a  man 
would  hr.ve  left  her  alone.  The  poor  fools,  however,  seemed 
actually  to  rejoice  in  her  hardness  of  heart.  Moreover,  why 
had  this  fascination  never  helped  her  to  renown?  She  could 
dance  better  than  many  of  the  girls  who  were  given  pas  seuls; 
but  she  had  ne\"cr  escaped  from  the  front  line  of  boys.  What 
was  the  good  of  working?     Nothing  came  of  it.     She  remained 


134  Carnival 

obscure  and  undefined  to  the  public.  It  was  not  hers  to  trip 
from  a  rostrum  into  the  affection  of  an  audience.  It  was  not 
hers  to  acknowledge  the  favor  of  applause  by  taking  a  call. 
There  was  no  shower  of  carnations  or  rain  of  violets  round 
her  farewell  curtseys.  If  she  never  danced  again,  it  would 
not  matter.  Half  bitterly  she  recalled  the  spangled  dreams  of 
childhood,  and  revived  the  splendor  of  a  silver  and  pink  ballet- 
skirt  that  now  would  seem  such  tawdry,  trumpery  apparel. 

"Fancy,"  she  said  to  May;  "I  used  to  want  to  be  a  Colum- 
bine and  dance  about  Islington.  Think  of  it.  What  an  un- 
natural child!" 

Columbine  appeared  fitfully  in  the  Ballet-divertissements 
that  opened  the  Orient's  entertainment,  but  Jenny  never  por- 
trayed that  elusive  personage.  Certainly  she  played  Harlequin 
once,  when  a  girl  was  ill ;  and  very  gay  and  sweet  she  looked 
in  the  trim  suit  checkered  with  black  and  gold. 

Jenny  wondered  why  she  had  longed  to  grow  up. 

"I  used  to  think  that  it  was  glorious  to  be  grown  up.  But 
there's  nothing  in  it.  There  might  be,  but  there  isn't.  I  wish 
I  could  be  what  I  thought  I  would  be  as  a  kid." 

"Oh,  Jenny,  don't  talk  so  much,  and  get  dressed,"  said  Irene. 
"Aren't  you  coming  out  to-night?" 

"I  suppose  so,"  Jenny  answered.  "I  wish  I  couldn't.  I  wish 
I'd  got  to  meet  somebody.     There,  now  I've  told  you." 

"Hark  at  her.     Hark  at  Jenny  Pearl." 

"Oh,  well,  I'm  sick  of  going,  out  with  you." 

Irene  sulked  awhile;  then  asked: 

"Have  you  seen  the  peroxide  they've  sent  up  for  our  arms?" 

"Oo-er!     Why?" 

"Mr.  Walters  said  all  the  girls  was  to  use  it." 

"Oh,  aren't  they  shocking,  Irene?    I  do  think  they're  awful." 

"Somebody  said  the  Hesperides  didn't  look  nice  from  the 
front." 

Jenny  examined  the  purple  bottle  which  would  idealize  their 
forms  to  an  Hellenic  convention.  After  the  first  indignation 
had  worn  itself  out,  she  began  to  be  amused  by  the  transfor- 


Growing  Old  135 


mations  of  the  drug.  Lying  in  bed  next  morning,  she  began 
to  play  with  the  notion  of  dyeing  her  hair.  The  tradition  of 
youthful  fairness  from  the  midst  of  which  glowed  her  deep  blue 
eyes,  was  still  vital  in  Hagworth  Street.  Other  girls  d)ed  their 
hair,  and  already  once  or  twice  Jenny  had  considered  the  step ; 
but  the  exertion  of  buying  the  peroxide  had  hitherto  stifled  the 
impulse.  Here,  however,  was  the  opportunity,  and  surely  the 
experiment  was  worth  the  trial.  She  jumped  out  of  bed  and 
examined  herself  critically  in  the  toilet-glass;  tried  to  picture 
the  effect  of  fairness.  It  would  be  a  change,  anyhow  ir 
would  be  something  to  vary  the  monotony  of  existence.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  learn  if  her  new  appearance  provoked 
admiration  greater  than  ever.  It  would  be  interesting  to  see 
if  the  change  impressed  the  authorities  of  the  Orient.  Best  of 
all,  perhaps,  would  be  the  exclamations  of  surprise  when  the 
dressing-room  first  beheld  the  alteration. 

Having  conceived  the  plan,  she  began  to  hate  her  present 
appearance,  to  ascribe  to  her  present  shade  all  the  boredom 
that  was  clinging  round  her  like  a  fog.  Her  own  hair,  para- 
doxically enough,  came  to  be  considered  an  unnatural  color. 
After  all,  she  was  really  fair,  and  had  been  cheated  of  her 
natural  hue  merely  by  the  freak  of  time.  It  was  not  as  if 
she  were  truly  dark.  She  could  herself  remember  the  glories 
of  her  complexion  before  they  paled  in  the  gloomy  airs  of  the 
Orient.  For  a  moment,  however,  the  birth  or  artifice  dismayed 
her.  She  wondered  if,  in  addition  to  going  fair,  she  would 
also  go  magenta,  like  some  of  the  girls  who  ahvays  made  up. 
Again  the  phantom  of  age  laughed  over  her  shoulder;  but  the 
contemplation  of  futurity  was  fleeting,  and  she  decided  that  if 
she  was  going  fair,  the  sooner  she  went  the  better  it  would  be: 
if  she  waited  till  thirty  the  world  might  laugh  with  reason. 
She  would  chance  it.  Jenny  appropriated  a  bottle  of  the  man- 
agement's peroxide  that  very  night,  and  excited  by  the  prospect 
of  entertainment,  came  home  immediately  after  the  perform- 
ance, alarming  Mrs.  Raeburn  so  much  by  her  arrival  that  the 
latter  exclaimed: 


136 


Carnival 


"You  are  early.     Is  anything  the  matter?" 

"Anything  the  matter?     Whatever  should  be  the  matter?" 

"Well,  it's  only  a  quarter  to  twelve." 

"Who  cares?" 

"Don't  say  that  to  me." 

"I  shall  say  what  I  like,  and  I'm  going  to  bed." 

May,  however,  was  wide  awake  when  Jenny  reached  their 
room;  so  the  deed  had  to  be  postponed.  May,  elated  by  her 
sister's  unaccustomed  earliness,  chattered  profusely,  and  it  was 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning  before  she  fell  asleep.  Then  Jenny 
crept  out  of  bed  and  by  the  faintiest  glimmer  of  gaslight 
achieved  the  transformation. 

She  woke  up  in  the  morning  to  May's  cries  of  disgust. 

"Oh,  you  sight!     Whatever  have  you  done?" 

'^Don't  make  such  a  shocking  noise.     I've  gone  fair." 

"Gone  fair!"  exclaimed  her  sister.  "Gone  white,  you  mean. 
Get  up  and  look  at  yourself.    You  look  terrible." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Jenny.  "Here,  give  me  hold 
of  the  hand-glass." 

Her  reflection  upset  her.  She  must  have  put  on  too  much 
in  the  uncertain  light. 

"It's  like  milk,"  cried  May. 

"Don't  annoy  me." 

"Oh,  Jenny,  it's  awful.  It's  like  that  canary  of  Alfie's  who 
died  so  sudden.     It's  shocking.    What  ivill  all  my  friends  say?" 

"Who  cares  about  your  friends?  They're  nobody.  Besides, 
it'll  be  quite  all  right  soon.     It's  bound  to  sink  in." 

"What  will  AWe  say?" 

"Oh,  damn  Alfie!" 

"There's  a  lady.    Now  swear." 

"Well,  you  annoy  me.     It's  my  own  hair,  isn't  it?" 

"Oh,  it's  your  own  hair  right  enough.  Nobody  else  wouldn't 
own  it." 

"I  don't  think  I'll  come  down  to  breakfast  this  morning. 
Say  I've  got  a  most  shocking  headache,  and  fetch  me  up  a  cup 
of  tea,  there's  a  little  love." 


Growing  Old  137 

"Mother'll  only  come  up  and  see  what's  the  matter,  so  don't 
be  silly.     You've  got  to  go  downstairs  some  time." 

"Oo-er,  May,  I  wish  I  hadn't  done  it  now.  It's  going 
whiter  all  the  time.  Look  at  it.  Oh,  what  unnatural  stuff.  It 
can't  go  lighter  than  white,  can  it?" 

Mrs.  Raeburn,  in  the  act  of  pouring  out  tea,  held  the  pot 
suspended,  and,  shaking  with  laughter,  looked  at  her  daughter. 
Charlie,  too,  happened  to  be  at  home. 

"Good  gracious  alive!"  cried  the  mother. 

"I  thought  I'd  see  how  it  looked,"  Jenny  explained,  with 
apologetic  notes  in  her  voice. 

"You'll  think  your  head  right  off  next  time,"  said  Charlie 
profoundly. 

Jenny  was  seized  with  an  idea. 

"I  had  to  do  it  for  the  theater.  At  least,  I  thought — oh, 
well — don't  all  stare  as  if  you'd  never  seen  a  girl  with  fair  hair. 
You'll  get  used  to  it." 

"I  sha'n't,"  said  Charlie  hopelessly.  "I  shouldn't  never  get 
used  to  that,  not  if  I  lived  till  I  was  a  hundred.  Not  if  I 
never  died  at  all." 

"Depend  upon  it,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn,  "her  Aunt  Mabel 
will  come  and  see  us  this  very  day  and  ask  what  I've  been 
doing." 

"What  about  it?"  said  Jenny  defiantly,  "Who's  she?  Surely 
I  can  do  what  I  like  with  my  own  hair  without  asking 
her." 

"Now,  what  'ud  you  say  if  I  went  and  dyed  my  hair?"  asked 
Charlie,  "and  come  down  with  it  the  color  of  an  acid  drop. 
That's  what  I'd  like  to  know." 

A  silence  of  pent-up  laughter  held  the  breakfast  party,  while, 
under  the  mirthful  glances  of  her  mother  and  sister,  Jenny 
began  to  regret  the  chance.    At  last  she  volunteered: 

"Oh,  well,  it's  done  now." 

"Done  in,  I  should  say,"  corrected  Charlie. 

It  was  a  gusty  morning  of  clouds  in  early  June,  and  the 
Hagworth    Street    kitchen    was    dark.     The    sun,    however, 


138 


Carnival 


streamed  in  for  a  moment  in  the  wake  of  Charlie's  correction, 
and  Jenny's  new  hair  was  lighted  up. 

"Why,  it's  worse  than  I  thought,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"You  look  like  a  funny  turn." 

"It  looks  like  that  ginger-beer  we  had  on  Whit-Monday," 
said  her  father. 

"Oh,  who  cares?"  cried  Jenny,  flouncing  upstairs  out  of 
the  room.  When  she  came  down  again,  she  was  dressed  to  go 
out. 

"You're  never  going  out  in  broad  daylight?"  asked  May. 

"Let  her  go,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "Her  hat  covers  it  up  a 
hit.  I  only  hope  if  we  have  company,  she'll  have  the  goodness 
to  keep  her  hat  on  all  the  time." 

"Oh,  yes,  that  would  be  a  game  of  mine.  I  don't  think!" 
protested  Jenny. 

The  latter's  belief  in  herself  was  restored  by  the  attitude 
of  the  dressing-room.  The  girls  all  vowed  the  change  im- 
proved her.  There  was  an  epidemic  of  peroxide,  and  Irene 
actually  tarnished  her  own  rich  copper  with  the  dye,  so  that 
for  a  while  her  hair  seemed  streaked  with  verdigris.  More- 
over, the  unnatural  fairness  wore  off  as  the  weeks  went  by, 
and  at  last  even  the  family  was  compelled  to  admit  that  she 
had  not  made  a  mistake.  Only  Alfie  remained  unconvinced, 
declaring  she  deserved  a  hiding  for  messing  herself  about.  As 
for  the  suitors,  they  ran  faster  than  before,  but  never  swiftly 
enough  to  catch  Jenny. 

"I'm  bound  to  get  off  with  a  nice  young  chap,  now,"  she 
told  the  girls.    "I  wish  I  could  fall  in  love." 

"How  would  you  like  my  Willie?"  asked  Elsie  Crauford 
proudly. 

"Your  Willie?  I  don't  think  he's  anything  to  tear  oilcloth 
over." 

"Didn't  you  think  he  looked  nice  in  his  evening  dress?" 

"Your  Willie's  never  bought  himself  an  evening  dress! 
What!  Girls,  listen.  The  Great  Millionaire's  bought  himself 
an  evening  dress." 


Growmg  Old  139 

"You  are  rude,  Jenny  Pearl." 

"Well,  I  call  it  sill}'.  Swanking  round  in  evening  dress  with 
a  bent  halfpenny  and  his  latchkey.  And  you  needn't  give  me 
those  perishing  looks,  young  Elsie." 

"You  are  a  hateful  thing." 

"Your  PFillie  in  evening  dress.     Oh,  no,  it  can't  be  done." 

"Shut  up,  Jenny  Pearl,"  cried  Elsie,  stamping  her  foot. 

"Now  get  in  a  paddy.  I  suppose  it  was  you  edged  him  on 
to  go  without  his  dinner  for  a  week  to  buy  it." 

"I  hope  you'll  fall  in  love,  and  I  hope  he'll  go  away  to  New 
Zealand  the  same  as  Nelly  Marlowe's  Jack  did." 

"Oh !  there's  an  unnatural  girl !  Don't  jou  worry  yourself. 
Not  this  little  girl.  Not  Jenny  Pearl.  I  wouldn't  let  any 
man  make  a  fool  of  me." 

That  night  a  thunderstorm  ruined  Jenny's  hat. 

Next  day  she  bought  another,  pale  green  with  rosy  cherries 
bobbing  at  each  side.  "I  think  this  hat's  going  to  bring  me 
luck,"  she  announced. 

"The  cherries  is  all  right,  but  green  isn't  lucky,"  said  Irene. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Jenny,  "I'll  chance  it,  any  old  way." 


10 


chapter  XIII:    The  Ballet  of  Cupid 

THE  thunderstorm  which  ruined  Jenny's  hat  destroyed 
summer.  Blowy  August  twilights  began  to  harass 
the  leaves:  darkness  came  earlier,  and  people,  going 
home,  hurried  through  the  streets  where  lately  they  had  lin- 
gered. Jenny's  new  green  hat  with  bobbing  cherries  seemed 
to  have  strayed  from  the  heart  of  a  fresher  season,  and  passers- 
by  often  turned  to  regard  her  as  she  strolled  along  Coventry 
Street  toward  the  Orient.  September  brought  louder  winds 
and  skies  swollen  with  rain;  but  Jenny,  rehearsing  hard  for  a 
new  ballet  on  the  verge  of  production,  had  no  leisure  to  grumble 
at  chilly  dusks  and  moonless  journeys  home  to  Hagworth 
Street. 

The  Orient  was  in  a  condition  of  excitement,  for  the  new 
ballet,  like  a  hundred  before  it,  was  expected  to  eclipse  entirely 
the  reputation  of  its  predecessors.  Two  Ballerinas  had  arrived 
from  Rome,  winter  migrants  who  in  their  lightness  and  warmth, 
would  bring  to  London  a  thought  of  Italy.  A  Premier  Dan- 
seur,  more  agile  than  a  Picador,  had  traveled  over  from 
Madrid,  and  a  fiery  Maitre  de  Ballet  had  been  persuaded  to 
forsake  Milan.  Yet  the  first  night  of  Cupid  was  hard  upon 
the  heels  of  a  theater  apparently  utterly  unprepared  for  any 
such  date.  The  master  carpenter  was  wrangling  with  the  elec- 
trician. The  electrician  was  insulting  the  wardrobe-mistress. 
The  wig-maker  was  talking  very  rapidly  in  French  to  the  cos- 
tumier's draftsman,  who  was  replying  equally  rapidly  in  Italian. 
From  time  to  time  the  managing  director  shouted  from  the  back 
of  the  Promenade  to  know  the  reason  for  some  delay.     The 

140 


The  Ballet  of  Cupid  141 

new  Maitre  de  Ballet,  having  reduced  most  of  the  girls  to 
hysteria  by  his  alarming  rages,  abused  his  interpreter  for  mis- 
representing his  meaning.  The  Ballerinas  from  Rome  were 
quarreling  over  precedence,  and  the  Spanish  Danseur  was  weep- 
ing because  the  letters  of  his  name  were  smaller  by  four  inches 
than  those  which  announced  on  the  playbills  the  advent  of  his 
feminine  rivals.  The  call-boy  was  losing  his  youth.  Every- 
body was  talking  at  once,  and  the  musical  director  was  always 
severely  punctual. 

When  the  dress  rehearsal  lasted  eleven  hours,  everybody  con- 
nected with  the  Orient  prophesied  the  doom  of  Cupid ;  and  yet, 
on  the  twenty-first  of  September,  the  ballet  was  produced  with 
truly  conspicuous  success.  The  theme  was  Love  triumphant 
through  the  ages,  from  the  saffron  veils  and  hymeneal  torches 
and  flickering  airs  of  Psyche's  chamber,  through  Arthur's  rose- 
wreathed  court  and  the  mimic  passions  of  Versailles,  down  to 
modern  London  transformed  by  the  boy  god  to  a  hanging 
garden  of  Babylon. 

The  third  scene  was  a  Fete  Champetre  after  Watteau  at 
sunset.  Parterres  of  lavender  and  carnations  bloomed  at  the 
base  of  statues  that  gradually  disappeared  in  shadow  as  the  sun- 
set yielded  to  crimson  lanterns.  The  scene  was  a  harmony  of 
gray  and  rose  and  tarnished  silver.  Love  himself  wore  a  vizard, 
and  the  dances  were  very  slow  and  stately.  The  leisured 
progress  of  the  scene  gave  Jenny  her  first  opportunity  to  scan 
the  audience.  She  saw  a  clear-cut  face,  dead  white  in  the  blue 
haze  that  hung  over  the  stalls.  She  was  conscious  of  an  inter- 
est suddenly  aroused,  of  an  interest  more  profound  than  any- 
thing within  her  experience.  For  the  first  time  the  width  of 
the  orchestra  seemed  no  barrier  to  intercourse.  She  felt  she 
had  only  to  lean  gently  forward  from  her  place  in  the  line  to 
touch  that  unknown  personality.  She  checked  the  impulse  of 
greeting,  but  danced  the  rest  of  the  movement  as  she  had  not 
danced  for  many  months,  with  a  joyful  grace.  When  the  tempo 
di  miniietto  had  quickened  to  the  pas  scul  of  a  Ballerina  and 
the  stage  was  still,  Jenny  stood  far  down  in  the  corner  nearest 


142  Carnival 

to  the  audience.  Here,  very  close  to  the  blaze  of  the  footlights, 
the  auditorium  loomed  almost  impenetrable  to  eyes  on  the  stage, 
but  the  man  in  the  stalls,  as  if  aware  that  she  had  lost  him, 
struck  a  match.  She  saw  his  face  flickering  and,  guided  by  the 
orange  point  of  a  cigar,  whispered  to  Elsie  Crauford,  who  was 
standing  next  to  her: 

"See  that  fellow  in  evening  dress  in  the  stalls?" 

"Which  one?" 

"The  one  with  the  cigar — now — next  to  the  fat  man  fanning 
himself.     See?     I  bet  you  I  get  of?  with  him  to-night." 

"You  think  everybody's  gazing  at  you,"  murmured 
Elsie. 

"No,  I  don't.    But  he  is." 

"Only  because  he  can  see  you're  making  eyes  at  him." 

"Oh,  I'm  not." 

"Besides,  how  do  you  know?  He  isn't  waving  his  pro- 
gramme nor  nothing." 

"No;  but  he'll  be  waiting  by  the  stage-door." 

"I  thought  you  didn't  care  for  fellows  in  evening  dress,"  said 
Elsie. 

"Well,  can't  you  see  any  difiference  between  that  fellow  and 
your  Willie?" 

"No,  I  can't." 

"Fancy,"  said  Jenny  mockingly. 

The  Ballerina's  final  pose  was  being  sustained  amid  loud 
applause.  The  ballet-master  began  to  count  the  steps  for  the 
final  movement.  The  stage  manager's  warning  had  sounded. 
The  curtain  fell,  and  eighty  girls  hurried  helter-skelter  to  their 
rooms  in  order  to  change  for  the  last  scene. 

"All  down,  ladies,"  cried  the  call-boy,  and  downstairs  they 
trooped. 

The  curtain  rose  on  Piccadilly  Circus,  gray  and  dripping. 
Somber  figures  danced  in  a  saraband  of  shadows  to  a  yearning 
melody  of  Tschaikovsky.  The  oboe  gave  its  plaintive  sum- 
mons; like  sea-birds  calling,  the  rest  of  the  wood-wind  took 
up  the  appeal  until   it  died   away   in   a  solitary   flute,  which 


The  Ballet  of  Cupid  143 

sounded  a  joyful  signal  very  sweet  and  low.  A  cj'mbal  crashed : 
a  golden  ray  of  light  came  slanting  on  to  the  stone  figure  of 
Cupid,  infusing  him  with  life  until,  warm  and  radiant,  he 
sprang  from  his  pedestal  to  bewitch  the  sad  scene.  Roses 
tumbled  from  the  clouds;  lilies  sprang  up,  quivering  in  the 
wind  of  dancing  motion.  A  fountain  gushed  from  the  aban- 
doned pedestal;  the  scene  was  a  furnace  of  color.  The  Balle- 
rinas led  the  Corps  de  Ballet  in  a  Bacchic  procession  round  and 
round  the  twirling  form  of  Cupid.  With  noise  of  bell  and 
cymbal,  they  ran  leaping  through  an  enchanted  Piccadilly  seen 
in  amber  or  cornelian.  They  might  have  stepped  from  a  canvas 
of  Titian  dyed  by  the  sun  of  a  spent  Venetian  afternoon.  In- 
dividual members  of  the  audience  began  to  applaud,  and  the 
isolated  hand-claps  sounded  like  castanets,  until,  as  the  dance 
became  wilder,  cheers  floated  on  to  the  stage  like  the  noise  of 
waves  heard  suddenly  over  the  brow  of  a  hill. 

Jenny,  in  a  tunic  of  ivor>'  silk  sprayed  with  tawny  roses,  her 
hair  bound  with  a  fillet  of  gold,  turned  from  the  intoxication 
of  the  dance  to  search  the  stalls.  Across  the  arpeggios  of  the 
misted  violins,  his  eyes  burned  a  path.  Yet,  although  she  knew 
that  he  asked  for  a  signal  to  show  her  consciousness  of  him, 
she  could  not  give  one.  Had  his  glances  seemed  less  important, 
she  would  have  smiled;  but  since  for  the  first  time  in  her  life 
a  man  stirred  her,  bashfulness  caught  her  icily  and,  while  her 
heart  flamed,  her  eyes  were  cold.  The  curtain  fell,  rising 
again  at  once  to  let  the  bouquets  fall  softly  round  the  silver 
shoes  of  the  Ballerinas.  The  odor  of  stephanotis,  mingled 
with  the  sharper  perfume  of  carnations,  seemed  almost  visible. 
The  emotion  of  the  audience  struck  the  emotion  of  the  dancers 
and  kindled  a  triumph.  The  man  in  the  stalls  leaned  forward, 
and  the  intensity  of  his  gaze  was  to  Jenny  as  real  an  offering 
as  a  bouquet.  The  curtain  fell  for  the  last  time  and  as  it 
touched  the  stage,  instead  of  hurrying  to  her  dressing-room,  she 
stood  a  moment  staring  at  what,  for  the  first  time,  seemed  an 
agent  of  deprivation  not  relief.  Suddenly,  too,  she  realized  that 
she  was  very  lightly  clothed,  and,  as  she  walked  slowly  up  the 


1 44  Carnival 

stone  stairs  to  the  dressing-room,  was  not  sure  whether  she  was 
sorry  or  glad. 

In  the  crowd  of  chatting  girls,  Jenny  began  to  call  herself 
a  fool,  to  rail  at  her  weakness,  and  to  ascribe  the  whole  experi- 
ence to  the  extra  Guinness  of  a  first  night.  Yet  all  the  time 
she  wondered  if  he  would  be  waiting  at  the  end  of  the  court; 
there  had  been  no  wave  of  hand  or  flutter  of  a  programme  to 
confirm  the  hopes  of  imagination.  Moreover,  what  was  he 
really  like?  Outside  he  would  be  "awful,"  like  the  rest  of 
them.  Outside  he  would  smirk  and  betray  his  sense  of  owner- 
ship. Outside  he  would  destroy  the  magic  that  had  waked  her 
at  last  from  the  dull  sleep  of  ordinary  life.  She  began  to  hurry 
feverishly  her  undressing,  and  the  more  she  hurried,  the  more 
she  dreamed.  At  last,  having,  as  it  seemed,  exhausted  herself 
with  speed,  she  sat  down  on  the  bench,  and,  looking  round, 
perceived  that  the  other  girls  were  well  in  front  of  her.  She 
lost  confidence  and  wished  for  support  in  the  adventure. 

"Coming  out  to-night?"  she  asked  Irene. 

"If  you  like,"  said  the  latter. 

Jenny,  although  she  longed  to  be  out  of  the  theater,  could 
not  be  quick  that  night.  As  she  watched  the  other  girls  leave 
the  dressing-room,  she  asked  herself  why  she  had  wanted  Irene 
to  wait  for  her.  If  he  were  outside,  Irene  would  spoil  it  all; 
for,  together,  they  v/ould  giggle,  and  he  would  think  what  a 
shocking  couple  of  girls  he  had  fallen  in  with.  She  wished 
now  that  Irene  would  become  impatient  and  go,  but  the  latter 
seemed  perfectly  willing  to  dawdle,  though  by  now  they  were 
the  only  two   inhabitants  of  the  dressing-room. 

"Oh,  do  move  yourself!" 

"Oh,  I  can't,  Irene.    Whoever  made  these  unnatural  stays?" 

"We  shall  get  locked  in,"  said  Irene. 

But  Jenny  was  dressed  at  last,  and  together  they  passed  out 
into  the  cool  September  night.  He  was  there.  Instinctively 
Jenny  recognized  the  careless  figure  in  opera  hat  and  full  black 
coat.  She  drew  back  and  clutched  her  friend's  wrist,  aware 
of  hot  blushes  that  surely  must  flame  visibly  in  the  darkness. 


The  Ballet  of  Cupid  145 

"Who's  he?"  whispered  Irene. 

"Who's  who?" 

"The  fellow  by  himself  at  the  end  of  the  court?" 

"How  ever  on  earth  should  I  know?  Do  you  think  I'm  a 
walking  Ansivers?" 

The  two  girls  passed  him  by.  He  hesitated ;  then,  as  if 
by  an  effort,  raised  his  hat. 

Irene  giggled  foolishly. 

"How  d'ye  do,  Tootoose?"  said  Jenny,  self-possessed  through 
his  embarrassment. 

"I  liked  your  dancing,"  he  said  simply. 

"Did  you?     Who   ca ?"     She  stopped.     Somehow  the 

formula  was  inadequate. 

"Can't  we  go  and  have  supper  somewhere?"  he  asked. 

"Just  as  you  like." 

"Where  shall  we  go?" 

"It  doesn't  matter  to  me,"  said  Jenny. 

"Gatti's?" 

"Um." 

"But  do  you  like  Gatti's?"  persisted  the  stranger. 

"It's  all  right." 

"We  can  all  squash  into  a  hansom,  can't  we?" 

"Rather,"  said  Jenny. 

They  rattled  off  to  Gatti's,  and  were  soon  sitting  on  red  vel- 
vet, rulers  of  gayety. 

"What's  your  name,  Claude?"  inquired  Jenny. 

"Raymond,"  he  said. 

"Oo-er!    What  a  soppy  name!" 

The  young  man  hesitated.  He  looked  for  a  moment  deep 
into  Jenny's  eyes:  perceived,  it  may  be,  her  honesty,  and  said: 

"Well,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  my  real  name  is  Maurice — 
Maurice  Avery." 

"Oh,  and  he  wasn't  going  to  tell  us,"  cried  Jenny,  clapping 
her  hands.     "We  shall  have  to  call  him  careful  Willie." 

"No,  I  say,  really,  do  forgive  me  for  being  a  silly  ass." 

"Now  he's  being  rude  to  himself." 


146 


Carnival 


Here  a  fat  waiter  interposed  with  a  dish,  and  Avery  had 
time  to  recover  himself.  Meanwhile,  Jenny  regarded  him.  She 
liked  his  fresh  complexion  and  deep-blue  eyes.  She  liked  bet- 
ter still  his  weak,  girlish  mouth  and  white  teeth.  She  liked  best 
of  all  his  manner,  which  was  not  too  easy,  although  it  carried 
some  of  the  confidence  of  popularity. 

"Whatever  made  you  come  on  the  first  night?  I  think  the 
ballet's  rotten  on  the  first  night,"  said  Jenny. 

"I'm  awfully  glad  I  did.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had 
to.  I'm  a  critic.  I'm  going  to  write  a  notice  of  the  ballet  for 
the  Foint  of  View" 

Something  in  the  intonation  of  this  announcement  would 
have  warned  anybody  of  the  world  that  Avery's  judgment  had 
not  long  ago  been  demanded  for  the  first  time. 

"A  reporter?"  asked  Jenny. 

"Well,  a  sort  of  reporter." 

"You  don't  look  much  like  a  reporter.  I  knew  a  reporter 
once  who  was  going  to  photograph  me  in  a  bathing-dress  for 
Fluffy  Bits.  But  his  flat  was  too  high  up  for  this  little 
girl." 

Maurice  Avery  wished  that  Jenny  were  alone.  He  would  in 
that  case  have  attempted  to  explain  the  difference  between  a 
reporter  and  a  dramatic  critic.  Under  the  circumstances,  how- 
ever, he  felt  that  the  subject  should  be  dropped,  and  turned 
politely  to  Irene. 

"You're  not  talking  much." 

"Ah,  but  I  think  the  more." 

The  conversation  became  difficult,  almost  as  difficult  as  the 
macaroni  au  gratin  which  the  three  of  them  were  eating.  Mau- 
rice wished  more  than  ever  that  Irene  was  out  of  the  way.  He 
possessed  a  great  sense  of  justice  which  compelled  him  to  be 
particularly  polite  to  her,  although  his  eyes  were  all  for  Jenny. 
The  unsatisfactory  meal  evaporated  in  coffee,  and  presently 
they  stood  on  the  pavement. 

"I  say,  I  ought  to  drive  you  girls  home,"  said  Maurice.  "But 
to-night  I  absolutely  must  get  back  and  finish  this  notice  in 


The  Ballet  of  Cupid  14.7 

time  to  catch  the  three  o'clock  post.     Couldn't  we  all   three 
meet  to-morrow?" 

Inwardly  he  lamented  the  politeness  which  led  him  to  in- 
clude Irene  in  the  suggested  reunion. 

"All  right,  Willie  Brains,"  said  Jenny. 

"Where?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.    Outside  the  Palace.     Good  night." 

They  shook  hands  discreetly,  and  though  Maurice  held 
Jenny's  hand  longer  than  was  necessary,  he  held  Irene's  just  as 
long  in  case  she  might  have  noticed  and  felt  hurt  by  the  greater 
attention  paid  to  her  friend. 

Jenny  and  Irene  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  Tube  station 
by  Leicester  Square, 

"He  might  have  stood  us  a  cab  home,"  complained  the  latter. 

"Why  should  he?"  said  Jenny. 

Irene  looked  at  her  in  perplexity. 

"You're  usually  the  one  to  get  all  you  can  out  of  a  fellow. 
And  it  was  your  turn  to  ask  to-night." 

"I  like  Maurice,"  Jenny  replied.  "And  w^hat's  more,  I  think 
I  shall  like  him  again  to-morrow." 

The  afternoon  arrived.  Jenny  and  Irene,  walking  down 
Shaftesbury  Avenue,  perceived  Maurice  gazing  at  the  photo- 
graphs outside  the  Palace. 

"There  he  is,"  cried  Jenny. 

Avery  turned  round. 

"You  are  punctual,"  he  exclaimed. 

Tea,  at  whatever  tea-shop  they  drank  it,  was  dull.  The 
acquaintance  did  not  seem  to  advance. 

When  it  was  time  for  the  girls  to  go  into  the  theater,  Mau- 
rice said  desperately: 

"Could  I  drive  you — both  home  to-night?" 

At  the  last  moment  he  was  afraid  to  exclude  Irene.  "I'll 
wait  outside,"  he  went  on,  "till  you  come  out." 

Rain  fell  that  night,  and  Maurice  was  glad  when,  along  the 
court,  he  could  see  them  strolling  towards  him. 

"A  hansom,  eh?"  he  said.     "Or  let's  have  a  drink  first." 


148 


Carnival 


In  the  Monico,  they  sat  round  a  table  and  nothing  mattered 
to  Maurice  and  Jenny,  except  eyes.  The  room  seemed  full  of 
eyes,  not  the  eyes  of  its  chattering  population,  but  their  own. 
Never  before  had  a  London  night  seemed  so  gay.  Never  be- 
fore had  creme  de  menthe  been  dyed  so  richly  green.  They  be- 
gan to  discuss  love  and  jealousy.  As  Romeo  hesitated 
before  he  joined  the  fatal  masquerade,  Maurice  was  seized 
with  an  impulse  to  make  himself  as  poor  a  thing  as  pos- 
sible. 

"I  couldn't  be  jealous,"  he  vowed.  "I  think  everybody  can 
be  in  love  with  two  or  three  people  at  once." 

"I  don't,"  said  Jenny. 

"Oh,  yes,  it's  absurd  to  be  jealous.  Quite  absurd.  Different 
people  suit  different  moods.  The  only  trouble  is  when  they 
meet." 

He  had  caught  hold  of  Jenny's  hand  while  they  were  speak- 
ing, and  now  she  drew  it  away. 

"I  think  I  know  what  he  means,"  said  Irene. 

"You  think  so,"  scoffed  Jenny.     "You!    You're  potty,  then." 

Maurice  felt  sorry  for  Irene  and  weakly  took  her  hand.  She 
let  it  recline  in  his  listlessly.  It  was  cold  and  damp  after 
Jenny's  vitality. 

"If  I  loved  a  man,"  said  Jenny,  "I  should  be  most  shocking 
jealous." 

"What  would  you  do  if  you  met  him  with  another  girl?" 
asked  Maurice. 

"I  should  never  speak  to  him  again." 

"Wouldn't  that  be  rather  foolish?" 

"Foolish  or  not,  that's  what  I  should  do." 

"Well,  I'm  not  jealous,"  vowed  Maurice.  "I  never  have 
been." 

"Then  you're  silly,"  asserted  Jenny.  "Jealous!  I'm  terribly 
jealous." 

"It's  a  mistake,"  said  Maurice.  "It  spoils  everything  and 
turns  a  pleasure  into  a  nuisance." 

"I  don't  think  I'm  jealous  of  you-know-who,"  put  in  Irene. 


The  Ballet  of  Cupid  149 

"Oh,  him  and  you,  you're  both  mad!"  exclaimed  Jenny. 
"But  if  ever  I  love  a  man " 

"Yes,"  said  Maurice  eagerly. 

Two  Frenchmen  at  the  next  table  wtrt  shuffling  the  domi- 
noes. For  Maurice  the  noise  had  a  strange  significance,  while 
he  waited  for  the  hypothesis. 

Jenny  stared  away  up  to  the  chandeliers. 

"Well?"  said  he.  Somebody  knocked  over  a  glass.  Jenny 
shivered. 

"It's  getting  late,"  she  said. 

"What  about  driving  home?"  asked  Maurice. 

Outside  it  was  pouring.  They  squeezed  into  a  hansom  cab. 
Again  his  politeness  seemed  bound  to  mar  the  evening. 

"Let's  see.  Irene  lives  at  Camden  Town.  We'd  better 
drive  to  Islington  first  and  leave  Jenny,  eh?" 

Then  Jenny  said  quite  unaccountably  to  herself  and  Irene: 

"No,  thanks.    We'll  drive  Irene  home  first." 

Maurice  looked  at  her  quickly,  but  she  gave  no  sign  of 
any  plan,  nor  did  she  betray  a  hint  of  the  emotion  he  would 
have  been  glad  to  see. 

With  the  glass  let  down  against  the  rain,  they  were  forced 
very  near  to  one  another  as  the  horse  trotted  along  Tottenham 
Court  Road  shining  with  puddles  in  the  lamplight. 

"This  is  jolly,"  said  Maurice,  bravely  putting  an  arm  round 
each  waist  and  holding  Irene  a  little  closer  for  fear  she  should 
feel  that  she  was  the  undesired  third  person.  Having  done 
this,  he  felt  entitled  to  kiss  Jenny  first  and  turned  towards  her 
lips.     She  drew  back,  whispering: 

"Ah,  so  near  and  yet  for  far." 

Then,  since  he  had  offered  to  kiss  Jenny,  he  felt  bound  to 
kiss  Irene.  The  latter  allowed  the  compliment  as  she  would 
have  let  him  pick  up  a  handkerchief.  Arrangements  were  made 
to  meet  again  on  the  morrow  at  the  same  place,  and  at  last 
the  cab  was  pulled  up  some  two  hundred  yards  from  Irene's 
house.  Maurice  jumped  out  and  shook  hands  very  politely  and 
waved  to  her  as  she  ran  up  a  side-street.     Then  he  sat  back 


150  Carnival 

beside  Jenny  in  the  cab.  The  driver  turned  his  horse  and  for 
a  minute  or  two  they  traveled  silently  through  the  rain  and 
lamplight. 

"Jenny,"  he  whispered,  "Jenny,  won't  you  kiss  me  now?" 

She  yielded  herself  to  his  arms,  and  while  the  wind  rattled 
the  glass  shield,  while  the  raindrops  danced  in  the  road  before 
them,  while  lights  faltered  and  went  out  in  passing  window- 
panes,  Jenny  nestled  closer,  ardent  and  soft  and  passionate. 

"Are  you  glad  we're  alone?"  he  whispered. 

"Rather." 

"I  suppose  you  knew  I've  been  burning  all  the  time  to  sit 
with  you  like  this?" 

"No." 

"Oh,  I  have,  Jenny.  Jenny,  I  saw  you  when  you  first  came 
on  the  stage,  and  afterwards  I  never  saw  anyone  else.  I  wish 
you  lived  a  thousand  miles  away." 

"Why?" 

"Because  then  we  should  travel  together  for  a  thousand 
hours." 

"You  date." 

"You're  so  delightful." 

"Am  I?" 

"I  wish  Irene  weren't  coming  to-morrow.  We  shall  have 
such  a  lot  to  talk  about,"  he  vowed. 

"Shall  we?" 

"What  on  earth  made  me  ask  her?" 

"It's  done  now." 

Maurice  sighed.  Then  he  caught  her  close  again  and  breath- 
less they  sat  till  Jenny  suddenly  cried : 

"Gee!    Here's  Hagworth  Street.    Good  night!" 

At  the  end  of  the  road,  under  the  tall  plane  tree  where  once 
Jenny  had  danced,  they  sat  in  the  old  hansom  cab,  while  the 
steam  rose  in  clouds  from  the  horse  and  the  puddles  sang  with 
rain  and  the  driver  smoked  meditatively.  The  world  was 
fading  away  in  sounds  of  traffic  very  remote.  The  wetness  of 
the  night  severed  them  from  humanity.    They  needed  no  blue 


The  Ballet  of  Cupid  i  5  i 

Pacific  haven  to  enrich  their  love.     They  perceived  no  omen 
in  the  desolation  of  the  London  night. 

"What  times  we  shall  have  together,"  said  Maurice. 

"Shall  we?"  the  girl  replied. 

"It's  all  happened  so  exactly  right." 

"It  does  sometimes,"  said  Jenny. 

The  horse  pawed  the  road,  impatient  of  the  loitering.  The 
driver  knocked  out  the  ashes  of  his  pipe  on  the  roof. 

"I  must  go  now,"  she  said. 

"Must  you?" 

"Yes." 

"One  more  kiss." 

To  Maurice  each  kiss  of  Jenny's  seemed  a  first  kiss. 

"Isn't  it  glorious?"  he  exclaimed. 

"What?" 

"Oh,  everything — life  and  London  and  you  and  I." 

He  stood  in  the  road  and  lifted  her  on  to  the  pavement. 

"Good  night,  my  Jenny." 

"Good  night." 
1  o-morrow : 

"Rather." 

"Good  night.     Bless  you." 

"Bless  youy  she  murmured.  Then,  surprised  by  herself,  she 
,^n  through  the  rain  as  swift  as  the  shadow  of  a  cloud,  while 
the  horse  trotted  southward  with  a  dreaming  passenger. 


chapter  XIV:  Rain  on  the  Roof 

UPSTAIRS  in  the  room  she  shared  with  May,  Jenny 
sat  before  the  glass  combing  her  hair,  while  outside 
the  rain  poured  down  with  volume  increasing  every 
moment.  The  wash  of  water  through  the  black,  soundless 
night,  lent  the  little  room,  with  its  winking  candle,  a  comfort- 
able security.  The  gentle  breathing  of  May  and  the  swish  of 
the  hairbrush  joined  the  stream  of  rain  Vv^ithout  in  a  mono- 
tone of  whisperings  that  sighed  endless  round  Jenny's  vivid 
thoughts.  Suddenly  she  sprang  from  her  reverie,  and,  pulling 
up  the  blind  with  a  rattle,  flung  open  the  window  to  dip  her 
hands  into  the  wet  darkness.  May  sat  up,  wild-eyed  from 
sleep.     The  candle  gasped  and  fluttered. 

"Whatever  is  it?"  cried  May. 

"Oh,  Maisie,  Maisie,"  said  her  sister;  "it's  raining  real  kisses 
to-night.     It  is,  really." 

"Have  you  gone  mad?" 

"Oh,  let  me  get  into  bed  quick  and  dream.     Oh,  May,  I'd 
go  mad  to  dream  to-night." 

And   soon    the   rain   washed   down    unheard,    where   Jenny, 
lying  still  as  coral,  dreamed  elusive  ardors,  ghostly  ecstasies. 

152 


Chapter  XV:  Cras  Amet 

THE  next  morning  sunlight  shone  in  upon  Jenny's  rose- 
dyed  awakening.  Flushed  with  dreams,  she  blinked, 
murmuring  in  sleepy  surprise: 

"Oo — er!  if  it  isn't  a  fine  day." 

"It's  glorious,"  corroborated  May  emphatically. 

"Oh,  it's  lovely;  let's  all  wave  flags." 

"You  were  a  mad  thing  last  night,"  said  May. 

"Don't  take  any  notice,  dee-ar.     I  was  feeling  funnified." 

"Opening  the  window  like  that  and  shouting  out  in  your 
sleep  and  cuddling  me  all  night  long." 

"Did  I?"  inquired  Jenny  curiously. 

"Did  you?     I  should  think  you  did.     Not  half." 

"Well,  if  you're  a  little  love  and  make  me  a  cup  of  tea, 
I'll  tell  you  all  about  it." 

"About  whnt?" 

"About  him.    Oh,  May,  he's  lovely.    Oh,  he's  It." 

"Who  is?" 

"A  fellow  I  met  this  week." 

"What,  another?" 

"Ah,  but  this  one's  the  One  and  Only." 

"Go  on,  I  know  your  One  and  Onlies." 

"Oh,  but  May,  he's  a  young  dream,  is  My  Friend  the  Prince. 
I'm  going  to  meet  him  this  afternoon  with  young  Irene." 

"And  have  a  proper  game  with  him,  I  suppose,  and  do  the 
poor  boy  in  and  say  good-by," 

"I  hope  I  sha'n't  never  say  good-by  to  him.     Never,  I  do." 

"You  have  got  it  bad." 

153 


154  Carnival 

"I  know.  Listen,  May,  He's  rather  tall  and  he's  got  a  nice 
complexion,  only  his  mother  says  he's  rather  pale,  and  he's 
got  very  white  teeth  and  a  mouth  that's  always  moving,  and 
simply  glorious  eyes," 

"What  color?" 

"Blue.  And  he  talks  very  nice,  and  his  name's  Maurice. 
But  whatever  you  do,  don't  say  nothing  to  mother  about  it." 

"As  if  I  should." 

Mrs.  Raeburn  came  into  the  room  at  that  moment. 

"Are  5^ou  lazy  girls  going  to  get  up?" 

"Oh,  ma,  don't  be  silly.     Get  up?    Oh,  what  a  liberty!" 

"Lying  in  bed  on  this  lovely  morning,"  protested  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn. 

"That's  it.  Now  you  carry  on  about  the  lovely  morning. 
Young  May's  already  woke  me  up  once  to  look  at  the  sun.  All 
I  know  is  it  makes  the  room  look  most  shocking  dusty." 

The  day  deepened  from  a  morning  of  pale  gold  to  an  amber 
afternoon,  whose  melting  splendor  suffused  the  thin  blue 
autumn  sky  with  a  glittering  haze.  Jenny  stood  pensive  awhile 
upon  the  doorstep. 

"Hark,  what  a  noise  the  birds  are  all  making,  Whatever's 
the  matter?" 

"They're  pleased  it's  fine,"  said  May. 

"Oh,  they're  pleased,  too,  are  they?"  Jenny  exclaimed,  as, 
with  a  long  shadow  leading  her  slim  form,  she  went  through 
a  world  of  russet  leaves  and  cheeping  sparrows  to  meet  her 
lover. 

At  the  club  there  was  a  message  from  Irene  to  say  she  was 
ill  and  unable  to  keep  the  appointment. 

"That's  funny,"  Jenny  thought.  "Seems  as  if  it's  bound  to 
be." 

Through  Leicester  Square  she  went  with  eyes  that  twisted 
a  hundred  necks  in  retrospect.  Down  Charing  Cross  Road 
she  hurried,  past  the  old  men  peering  into  the  windows  of  book- 
shops, past  the  delicatessen  shops  full  of  gold  and  silver  paper, 
past  a  tall,  gloomy  church  haunted  by  beggars,  hurrying  faster 


Cras  Amet  155 

and  faster  until  she  swung  into  the  sunlight  of  Shaftesbury  Ave- 
nue, There  was  Maurice  studying  very  earnestly  the  photo- 
graphs outside  the  Palace  Theater. 

"Here  I  am,  Claude,"  she  laughed  over  his  shoulder. 

"Oh,  I  am  glad  you've  come,"  he  said. 

"Irene  couldn't  come.    She's  ill.     Shame,  isn't  it?" 

"Really,"  said  Maurice,  trying  to  seem  concerned.  "Let's 
go  and  have  tea." 

"Oh,  you  unnatural  man.    Aren't  you  sorry  she's  ill?" 

"I  can't  be  sorry  you're  alone.    Where  shall  we  have  tea?" 

"Where  you  like." 

"I  know  a  funny  little  shop  off  Soho  Square  where  there 
aren't  many  people." 

"Don't  you  like  people,  then?" 

"Not  always." 

Soho  Square  held  the  heart  of  autumn  that  afternoon.  Lon- 
don had  surrendered  this  quiet  corner  to  pastoral  meditation. 
Here,  among  the  noise  of  many  sparrows  and  sibilance  of  dead 
leaves  on  the  unfrequented  pavement,  one  realized  in  the  per- 
ishable hour's  flight  the  immortality  of  experience. 

"More  birds,"  said  Jenny. 

"Don't  they  make  a  row  and  don't  the  leaves  look  ripping 
in  this  light?" 

"There's  another  one  getting  excited  over  the  day." 

"Well,  it  is  superb,"  said  Maurice.  "Only  I  wish  there 
weren't  such  a  smell  of  pickles.  I  say,  would  you  mind  going 
on  ahead  and  then  turning  back  and  meeting  me?" 

"Oo-er,  whatever  for?" 

"I  want  to  see  how  jolly  you'd  look  coming  round  the  corner 
under  the  trees." 

"You  are  funny." 

"I  suppose  you  think  I'm  absurd.  But  really,  you  know,  you 
do  look  like  a  Dresden  shepherdess  with  your  heart-shaped  face 
and  slanting  eyes." 

"Thanks  for  those  few  nuts." 

"No,  really,  do  go  on,  won't  you?" 
11 


156 


Carnival 


"I  certainly  sha'n't.     People  would  think  we  was  mad." 

"What  do  people  matter?" 

"Hark  at  him.     Now  he's  crushed  the  world." 

"One  has  to  be  fanciful  on  such  an  afternoon." 

"You're  right." 

"I  suppose  I  couldn't  kiss  you  here?" 

"Oh,  of  course.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  sit  down  on  the  curb 
and  put  your  arm  round  my  waist?" 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  should." 

"Well,  I  shouldn't.    See?  Where's  this  unnatural  tea-shop?" 

"Just  here." 

"It  looks  like  the  Exhibition." 

It  was  a  dim  coffee-shop  hung  with  rugs  and  gongs.  The 
smoke  of  many  cigarettes  and  joss-sticks  had  steeped  the  gloom 
with  Arabian  airs. 

"It  is  in  a  way  a  caravanserai,"  said  Maurice. 

"A  what?"  said  Jenny. 

"A  caravanserai — a  Turkish  pub,  if  you  like  it  better." 

"You  and  I  are  seeing  life  to-day." 

"I  like  my  coffee  freshly  ground,"  Maurice  explained. 

"Well,  I  like  tea." 

"The  tea's  very  good  here.    It's  China." 

"But  I  think  China  tea's  terrible.  More  like  burnt  water 
than  tea." 

"I'm  afraid  you  don't  appreciate  the  East,"  he  said. 

"No,  I  don't  if  it  means  China  tea." 

"I  wish  I  could  take  you  away  with  me  to  Japan.  We'd 
sit  under  a  magnolia  and  you  should  have  a  kiss  for  every 
petal  that  fell." 

"That  sounds  rather  nice." 

"You  know  you  yourself  are  a  bit  Japanesy." 

"Don't  say  that.     I  hate  to  be  told  that." 

"It's  the  slant  in  your  eyes." 

"I  don't  like  my  eyes,"  said  Jenny  emphatically. 

"I  do." 

"One  pleased,  any  old  way." 


Cras  Amet  157 


"I  love  jour  eyes,"  said  Maurice  earnestly.  "But  I  made  a 
mistake  when  I  said  you  were  Japanese.  You're  Slav — Rus- 
sian, you  know," 

"I  must  be  a  procession  of  all  nations,  according  to  you." 

"But  you  are  frightfully  subtle." 

"Anything  else?    You're  sure  I'm  not  a  bighead?" 

"A  what?"  said  Maurice. 

"A  pantomime  bighead." 

Maurice  laughed. 

"Men  always  talk  about  my  eyes,"  Jenny  went  on.  "They 
often  call  me  the  girl  with  the  saucy  eyes,  or  the  squiny  eyes, 
which  I  don't  like.  And  yet,  for  all  my  strange  appearance,  if 
I  want  a  man  to  be  struck  on  me,  he  always  is." 

"Did  you  want  me  to  be  struck  on  you?" 

"I  suppose  I  must  have." 

"Is  that  why  you  made  us  see  Irene  home  first — so  that  you 
could  be  alone  with  me?" 

"I  suppose  so.  Any  more  questions?  You're  worse  than  my 
sister,  and  she'd  ask  the  tail  ofiF  a  cat." 

"Hum!" 

"Cheer  up,  Puzzled  Willy." 

"Have  you  ever — er — well,  insisted  on  having  the  person 
you  wanted  before?" 

"No,  I've  not.  Not  like  that.  I  can't  make  myself  out  some- 
times. I  don't  understand  myself.  I  do  a  thing  all  of  a  sud- 
den and  the  next  minute  I  couldn't  tell  anybody  why  I  done  it." 

"I  might  have  thought  you  were  running  after  me,"  said 
Maurice. 

"Who  cares?  If  you  did,  it  wouldn't  matter  to  me.  If  I 
wanted  you  to  make  a  fool  of  yourself,  you'd  make  a  fool  of 
yourself." 

"But  supposing  I  made  a  fool  of  you?"  asked  Maurice, 
slightly  nettled. 

"I  don't  think  you  could." 

"But  I  might.  After  all,  I  may  be  as  attractive  to  women 
as  you  are  to  men.     Perhaps  we've  both  met  our  match.     I  nd- 


158 


Carnival 


mit  you  fascinate  me.     From  the  first  moment  I  saw  you,  I 
wanted  you.     I  told  you  that.    And  you?" 
"I  wanted  you,"  said  Jenny  simply. 

"It  is  love  at  first  sight.  And  yet,  do  you  know,  I  had  an 
instinct  to  make  you  not  like  me." 

"You  couldn't." 

"Couldn't  I?"  said  Maurice,  breathless.  The  heavy  air  of 
the  coffee-shop  vibrated  with  unheard  passionate  melodies. 

"No,"  said  Jenny,  gazing  full  at  the  young  lover  opposite, 
while  Eros  shook  his  torch,  and  the  gay  deep  eyes,  catching  the 
warm  light,  shone  as  they  had  never  shone  for  any  man  before. 
"But  why  did  you  try  to  make  me  not  like  you?" 

"I  felt  afraid,"  said  Maurice.  "I'm  not  very  old,  but  I've 
made  two  girls  unhappy,  and  I  had  a  presentiment  that  you 
would  be  the  revenge  for  them." 

"I've  made  boys  unhappy,"  said  Jenny.  "And  I  thought 
you  were  sent  to  pay  me  out." 

"But  I  shall  always  love  you,"  said  Maurice,  putting  his 
hand  across  the  little  table  and  clasping  her  fingers  close. 

"So  shall  I  you." 

"We're  lucky,  aren't  we?" 

"Rather." 

"I  feel  sorry  for  people  who  aren't  in  love  with  you.  But 
don't  let's  talk  here  any  more.  Let's  go  back  to  my  rooms," 
he  suggested. 

"I've  got  to  be  in  the  theater  by  half-past  seven." 

"I  know,  but  we've  plenty  of  time.  It's  only  just  half-past 
five." 

"Where  do  you  live?" 

"Westminster.  Looking  over  the  river.  I've  got  a  largish 
studio.  Quite  a  jolly  room.  I  share  the  floor  below  with  a 
friend." 

"What's  he  like?" 

"Castleton?  Funny  chap.  I  don't  expect  you'd  care  for  him 
much.  Women  don't  usually.  But  don't  let's  talk  about 
Castleton.     Let's  talk  about  Jenny  and  Maurice." 


Cras  Amet  159 

Outside  the  fumes  of  the  coffee-shop  were  blown  away  by 
soft  autumnal  breezes. 

"We'll  dash  it  in  a  taxi.  Look,  there's  a  salmon-colored  one. 
What  luck!  We  must  have  that.  They're  rather  rare.  Taxi! 
Taxi!" 

The  driver  of  the  favored  hue  pulled  up  beside  the  pave- 
ment. 

"Four-twenty-two  Grosvenor  Road,  Westminster." 

"I  wonder,"  said  Maurice,  glancing  round  at  Jenny  and  tak- 
ing her  slim  gloved  hand  m  his.  "I  wonder  whether  taxis  will 
ever  be  as  romantic  as  hansoms.  They  aren't  yet  somehow. 
All  the  same,  there's  a  tremendous  thrill  in  tearing  through  this 
glorious  September  weather.  Oh,  London,"  he  shouted,  bounc- 
ing in  excitement  up  and  down  on  the  springy  cushions,  "Lon- 
don, you're  wonderful." 

Jenny  shook  his  hand  as  a  nurse  reproves  a  child. 

"Keep  still,"  she  commanded.  "The  man'll  think  you're 
potty." 

"But  I  am  potty.  You're  potty.  The  world's  potty,  and 
we're  in  love.  My  sweet  and  lovely  Jenny,  I'm  in  love  with 
you. 

"There  was  a  young  lady  called  Jenny, 
Whose  eyes,  some  men  said,  were  quite  squiny. '* 

"Oh,  Maurice,  you  are  awful,"  she  protested. 
But,  Ap6llo  urging  him,  Maurice  would  finish : 

"When  they  said:  'You're  our  fate,* 
She  replied,  'It's  too  late.* 
So  they  went  away  sad'and  grew  skinny.'* 

"Lunatic!"  she  said.  "And  don't  talk  about  getting  thin. 
Look  at  me.     Nothing  but  skin  and  grief." 

"Nonsense,"  said  Maurice,  and  went  on  rhyming: 

"There  was  a  young  lady  said:  'What! 
My  figure  is  going  to  pot.'  " 


i6o  Car7tival 

And  then  two  more  lines  that  will  have  to  be  filled  in  like  your 
figure,  and  then : 

"They  all  of  them  said:  *No  it's  not.*  " 

"Well,  you're  not  much  more  than  a  rasher  of  wind  your- 
self," commented  Jenny. 

"Ha!  ha!"  shouted  Maurice.  "That's  good.  Hullo,  here's 
Trafalgar  Square.  Aren't  we  going  a  pace  down  Whitehall? 
Jenny,  there  aren't  any  words  for  what  I  feel." 

He  hugged  her  close. 

"Oh,  mind !"  she  protested,  withdrawing  from  the  embrace. 
"People  can  see  us." 

"My  dear,  they  don't  matter.  They  don't  matter  a  damn. 
Not  one  of  them  matters  the  tiniest  dash." 

Nor  did  they  indeed  to  lovers  in  the  warm  apricot  of  a  fine 
September  sunset.  What  to  them  were  dusty  clerks  with 
green  shining  elbows,  and  government  officials  and  policemen, 
and  old  women  with  baskets  of  tawny  chrysanthemums?  Fairies 
only  were  fit  to  be  their  companions.  The  taxi  hummed  on 
over  the  road  shadowed  by  the  stilted  Gothic  of  the  Houses  of 
Parliament,  hummed  out  of  the  shadow  and  into  Grosvenor 
Road,  where  the  sun  was  splashing  the  river  with  pools  of  cop- 
pery light.  The  stream  was  losing  its  burnished  ripples  and 
a  gray  mist  was  veiling  the  fire-crowned  chimneys  of  Nine 
Elms  when  the  taxi  drew  up  by  422  Grosvenor  Road, 

"Right  to  the  very  top,"  called  Maurice.  "I  do  hope  you 
don't  mind." 

As  he  spoke  he  caught  her  round  the  waist  and  gathered  her 
to  his  side  to  climb  the  stairs. 

"It's  an  old  house.  I've  got  an  attic  for  my  studio.  Cas- 
tleton's  out.  An  old  woman  buried  somewhere  near  the  center 
of  the  earth  cooks  for  me.  When  you  see  her,  you'll  think  she's 
arrived  via  Etna.  Jenny,  I'm  frightfully  excited  at  showing 
you  my  studio." 

At  last  they  reached  the  topmost  landing,  which  was  lit  by 
a  skylight  opaque  with  spiders'  webs  and  dust.     The  landing 


Cras  A^net  1 6  i 

itself  was  full  of  rubbish,  old  clothes,  and  tattered  volumes  and, 
as  if  Maurice  sought  to  emulate  Phaethon,  a  bicycle. 

"Not  in  these!"  said  Jenny.  "You  don't  carry  that  up  and 
down  all  these  stairs  every  day?" 

"Never,"  said  Maurice  gayly.  "Not  once  since  I  carried  it 
up  for  the  first  time  a  year  ago." 

"You  silly  old  thing." 

"I  am.     I  am.     But  isn't  it  splendid  to  be  able  to  be  silly?" 

He  opened  the  door  of  the  studio  and  Jenny  walked  into 
what  seemed  an  astonishingly  large  room.  There  were  win- 
dows at  either  end  and  a  long  skylight  overhead.  The  ceiling 
was  raftered  and  on  the  transverse  beams  were  heaped  all 
sorts  of  things  that  young  men  bring  to  London  but  never  use, 
such  as  cricket-bats  and  tennis-racquets  and  skates. 

The  windows  on  one  side  looked  out  over  the  river,  over 
barges  going  up  on  the  full  flood,  and  chimneys  flying  stream- 
ers of  pearl-gray  smoke.  The  wn'ndows  on  the  other  side 
opened  on  to  a  sea  of  roofs  that  rolled  away  down  to  a  low 
line  of  purple  cloud  above  whose  bronzed  and  jagged  edge  the 
Byzantine  tower  of  Westminster  Cathedral  rose  in  silhouette 
against  a  sky  of  primrose  very  lucent  and  serene. 

There  was  a  wide  fireplace  with  a  scarred  rug  before  it  and 
on  either  side  a  deal  seat  with  high  straight  back.  There  were 
divans  by  the  same  craftsman  along  the  whitewashed  walls,  and 
shelves  of  tumbled  books.  Here  and  there  were  broken  stat- 
ues and  isolated  lead-bound  panes  of  colored  glass,  with  an 
easel  and  a  model's  throne  and  the  trunk  of  a  lay  figure.  There 
was  a  large  table  littered  with  papers  and  tins  of  pineapple 
and  a  broken  bag  of  oranges  very  richly  hued  in  the  sunset. 
The  floor  was  covered  with  matting,  over  which  were  scattered 
Persian  rugs  whose  arabesques  of  mauve  and  puce  were  merged 
in  a  depth  of  warm  color  by  the  fleeting  daylight.  On  the 
walls  were  autotypes  of  Mona  Lisa  and  Botticelli's  Venus,  of 
the  Prince  of  Orange  and  little  Philip  the  Fourth,  on  his  great 
horse.  There  was  also  an  alleged  Rubens,  the  purchase  of 
Maurice's  first  year  st  Oxford,  from  the  responsibility  of  whose 


1 6  2  Carnival 

possession  he  had  never  recovered.  There  were  drawings  on 
the  wall  itself  of  arms  and  legs  and  breasts  and  necks,  and  a 
row  of  casts  in  plaster  of  Paris.  Here  and  there  on  shelves 
were  blue  ginger-jars,  Burmese  masks  and  rolls  of  Florentine 
end-papers.  There  was  a  grandfather-clock,  lacquered  and 
silent,  which  leaned  slightly  forward  to  ponder  its  appearance 
in  a  Venetian  mirror  whose  frame  was  blown  in  a  design  of 
pink  and  blue  roses  and  shepherds.  The  window-curtains  were 
chintz  in  a  pattern  of  faded  crimson  birds  and  brown  vine- 
leaves  stained  with  mildew.  In  one  corner  was  a  pile  of  bro- 
caded green  satin  that  was  intended  to  cover  the  undulating 
horsehair  sofa  before  the  fire. 

Maurice's  room  was  a  new  experience  to  Jenny. 

"What  a  shocking  untidy  place!"  she  exclaimed.  "What! 
It's  like  Madge  Wilson's  mother's  second-hand  shop  in  the 
New  Kent  Road.    You  don't  live  here?" 

"Yes,  I  do,"  said  Maurice. 

"Sleep  here?" 

"No;  I  sleep  underneath.     I've  a  bedroom  with  Castleton." 

"Untidy,  like  this  is?" 

"No,  rather  tidy.  Bath-tub,  Sandow  exerciser,  and  photo- 
graphs of  my  sisters  by  Ellis  and  Walery.  Quite  English  and 
respectable." 

Jenny  went  on: 

"Doesn't  all  this  mess  ever  get  on  your  nerves?  Don't  you 
ever  go  mad  to  clear  it  up?" 

"You  shall  be  mistress  here  and  clear  up  when  you  like." 

"All  right,  Artist  Bill.     I  suppose  you  are  an  artist?" 

"I  don't  know  what  I  am.  I'd  like  best  to  be  a  sculptor. 
You  must  sit  for  me." 

"The  only  artist  I  ever  sat  for  I  took  off  my  belt  to  in  the 
finish." 

"Why?" 

"He  annoyed  me.    Goon.    What  else  are  you?" 

"I'd  like  to  be  a  musician." 

"You've  got  a  jolly  fine  piano,  any  way,"  said  Jenny,  sitting 


I 


Cras  A  met  163 

down  to  a  Bechstein  grand  to  pick  out  some  of  Miss  Victoria 
Monk's  songs  with  the  right  hand  while  she  held  a  cigarette 
in  the  left. 

"Then  I  write  a  bit,"  said  Maurice.  "Criticisms,  you  know. 
I  told  you  I  wrote  a  notice  of  your  ballet.  I'm  twenty-four 
and  I  shall  come  into  a  certain  amount  of  money,  and  my 
people  live  in  a  large  house  in  Surrey  and  oh,  I — well — I'm  a 
dilettante.     Now  you  know  my  history." 

"Whatever  on  earth's  a  dilly — you  do  use  the  most  unnatural 
words.     I  shall  call  you  Dictionary  Dick." 

"Look  here,  let's  chuck  explanations,"  said  Maurice.  "I 
simply  must  kiss  3^ou.     Let's  go  and  look  out  at  the  river." 

He  pulled  her  towards  the  window  and  flung  it  wide  open. 
Together  they  leaned  out,  smoking.  The  sparrows  were  silent 
now.  They  could  hear  the  splash  and  gurgle  of  the  water 
against  the  piers,  and  the  wind  shaking  the  plane  tree  bare 
along  the  embankment.  They  watched  the  lamp-lighter  go 
past  on  his  twinkling  pilgrimage.  They  listened  to  the  thunder 
of  London  streets  a  long  way  oflf.  Their  cigarettes  were  fin- 
ished. Together  they  dropped  to  extinction  in  a  shower  of 
orange  sparks  below. 

Maurice  drew  Jenny  back  into  the  darkening  room. 

"Look!  The  windows  are  like  big  sapphires,"  he  said,  and 
caught  her  to  his  arms.  They  stood  enraptured  in  the  dusk 
and  shadows  of  the  old  house.  Round  them  Attic  sh.pcs  glim- 
mered: the  gods  of  Greece  regarded  them:  Aphrodite  laughed. 

"Don't  all  these  statues  frighten  you?"  said  Jenny. 

"No,  they're  too  beautiful." 

"Oh!"  screamed  Jenny.     "Oh!    She  moved.     She  moved." 

"Don't  be  foolish,  child.    You're  excited." 

"I  must  go  to  the  theater.     It's  late.     I  do  feci  silly." 

"I'll  drive  you  down." 

"But  I'll  come  again,"  she  said.  "Only  next  time  we'll  light 
the  gas  when  it  gets  dark.  I  hate  these  statues.  They're  like 
skelingtons." 

"I'm  going  to  make  a  statue  of  you.     May  I?    Dancing?" 


164  Carnival 

"If  you  like." 

"I  adore  you." 

"So  do  I  you,"  said  Jenny. 

"Not  so  much  as  I  do." 

"Just  as  much,  Mr.  Knowall,"  she  said,  shaking  her  head. 

They  kissed  once  more. 

"Jenny,  Jenny!"  It  was  almost  a  poignant  cry.  "Jenny, 
I  wish  this  moment  were  a  thousand  years.  But  never  mind, 
we  shall  always  be  lovers." 

"I  hope  we  shall." 

"Why  only  hope?    We  shall.    We  must." 

"You  never  know,"  she  whispered.  "Men  are  funny;  you 
never  know." 

"Don't  you  trust  me?" 

"I  trust  nobody.    Yes,  I  do.    I  trust  you." 

"My  darling,  darling!" 

Then  downstairs  they  went,  closer  locked  on  every  step,  close 
together  with  hearts  beating,  the  world  before  them,  and  the 
stars  winking  overhead. 


chapter  XVI :  Love's  Halcyon 

THE  next  fortnight  passed  quickly  enough  in  the  rapture 
of  daily  meetings  and  kisses  still  fresh  and  surprising 
as  those  first  primroses  of  spring  which  few  can  keep 
from  plucking.  There  was  nobody  to  interrupt  the  intimacy; 
for  Irene  remained  ill,  and  the  rest  of  the  world  was  as  yet 
unconscious  of  the  affair.  Nevertheless,  with  all  these  oppor- 
tunities for  a  complete  understanding,  the  relation  of  Maurice 
and  Jenny  to  one  another  was  still  essentially  undefined.  Their 
manner  of  life  in  that  first  fortnight  of  mutual  adoration  had 
the  exquisite  and  ephemeral  beauty  of  a  daylong  flower.  It 
possessed  the  elusive  joy  that  mayflies  have  in  dancing  for  a 
few  sunny  days  above  a  glittering  stream.  It  had  the  char- 
acter of  a  pleasant  dream,  where  thought  is  instantly  trans- 
lated into  action.  It  was  the  opening  of  a  poem  by  Herrick 
or  Horace  before  the  prescience  of  transitoriness  has  marred  the 
exultation  with  melancholy. 

Everything  favored  a  halcyon  love.  October  had  come  in, 
windless  and  very  golden.  Such  universal  serenity  was  bound 
to  preserve  for  lovers  the  illusion  of  permanence  that  exists 
so  poignantly  in  fine  autumn  weather,  when  the  leaves,  falling 
one  by  one  at  rare  intervals,  scarcely  express  the  year's  decay. 
The  sly  hours  stole  onward  in  furtive  disguises.  Milk-white 
dawns  evaporated  in  skies  of  thinnest  azure  and  noons  of  beaten 
gold,  until  in  pearl-gray  dusks  each  day  met  its  night  deh- 
cately.     For  Maurice  and  Jenny  even  the  night  conjured  no 

165 


1 66  Carnival 

wintry  thoughts,  and  when  the  moon  came  up  round  and 
tawny,  floating  unsubstantially  above  the  black  house-tops,  an 
aged  moon  lacquered  with  rust,  full  of  calamities,  these  lovers 
were  not  dismayed ;  although  they  were  not  influenced  to  quick 
and  fervid  enterprises. 

No  doubt,  if  they  had  wandered,  treading  violets  under  foot, 
beneath  the  silver  moons  of  Spring,  there  would  have  been  a 
more  rapid  encounter  of  emotions.  But  the  tranquillity  of 
nature  affected  Maurice  particularly.  He  was  like  a  man  who, 
having  endured  the  grief  of  long  separation,  meets  his  love  in 
joyful  security.  It  was  as  if  with  a  sigh  he  folded  her  to  his 
arms,  conscious  only  of  acquiring  her  presence.  He  had  from 
the  fret  of  London  gained  the  quiet  of  high  green  cliffs  and 
was  no  longer  ambitious  of  anything  save  meditation  on  the 
beauty  spread  before  his  eyes.  He  had  bought  the  much-de- 
sired book,  and  now  was  idly  turning  its  leaves,  safe  in  the 
triumph  of  possession. 

Jenny,  too,  after  her  long  experience  of  casual  attraction,  was 
glad  to  surrender  herself  to  the  luxury  of  absent  effort;  but 
in  her  case  the  feverishness  of  a  child,  who  dreads  any  discus- 
sion that  may  rob  the  perfect  hour  of  a  single  honeyed  moment, 
made  her  fling  white  arms  around  his  neck  and  hold  him  for 
her  own  against  invisible  thieves. 

There  exist  in  the  heart  of  a  London  dawn  a  few  minutes 
when  the  street  lamps  have  just  been  extinguished,  but  before 
the  sun  has  risen,  when  the  city  cannot  fail  to  be  beautiful  even 
in  its  meanest  aspects.  At  such  an  hour  the  Bayswater  Road 
has  the  mystery  of  a  dew-steeped  glade;  the  Strand  wears  the 
frail  hues  of  a  sea-shell;  Regent  Street  is  crystalline.  Even 
Piccadilly  Circus  stands  on  the  very  summit  of  the  world, 
wind-washed  and  noble. 

To  Maurice  and  Jenny  London  was  always  a  city  seen  at 
dawn ;  so  many  dull  streets  had  been  enchanted  by  their  meet- 
ings, so  many  corners  had  been  invested  with  the  delight  of 
the  loved  one's  new  appearance.  But,  though  they  were  still 
imparadised,  a  certain    wistfulness    in    looks    and    handclasps 


Loves  Halcyon  167 

showed  that  they  both  instinctively  felt  they  would  never  again 
tread  the  pavement  so  lightly,  never  again  make  time  a  lyric, 
life  a  measure. 

On  the  afternoon  before  Jenny's  birthday,  she  and  Maurice 
had  gone  to  Hampstead,  there  to  discuss  the  details  of  a  won- 
derful party  that  was  to  celebrate  in  the  studio  the  lucky  occa- 
sion. They  had  wandered  arm  in  arm  through  the  green  alleys 
and  orderly  byways  of  the  mellow  suburb,  dreaming  away  all 
sense  of  time  and  space.  It  was  the  very  culmination  of  St. 
Luke's  summer,  and  nowhere  had  the  glories  been  more  richly 
displayed.  Robins  sang  in  Well  Walk,  and  Michaelmas 
daisies  splashed  every  garden  with  constellations  of  vivid  mauve. 
After  tea  they  walked  up  Heath  Street  and  on  a  wooden  seat 
stayed  to  watch  the  sunset.  Below  them  the  Heath  rolled 
away  in  grassland  to  houses  whose  smoke  was  heavy  on  the 
dull  crimson  of  a  stormy  dusk.  The  sun  sank  with  an  absence 
of  effect  which  chilled  them  both.  Night,  with  a  cold  wind 
that  heralded  rain,  came  hard  on  the  heels  of  twilight.  The 
mist  rose  thickly  from  the  lower  parts  of  the  Heath,  and  the 
night's  jewelry  was  blurred. 

Maurice  spoke  suddenly  as  if  to  a  signal. 

"Jenny,  we  seem  to  have  spent  a  very  long  time  together 
now  in  finding  out  nothing." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  asked. 

"I  mean — we've  been  together  a  frightful  lot,  but  I  don't 
know  anything  about  you  and  you  don't  know  anything  about 
me. 

"I  know  you're  a  darling." 

"Yes,  I  know  that,  but " 

"What!"  she  broke  in,  "well,  if  you  don't  properly  go  out 
with  yourself." 

"No,  I  mean — bother  about  me  being  a  darling — what  I 
mean  is — what  are  we  going  to  do?" 

"What  do  you  want  us  to  do?" 

"You  don't  help  me  out,"  he  complained.  "Look  here,  are 
you  really  in  love  with  me?" 


1 6  8  Carnival 

"Of  course  I  am,"  she  said  softly. 

"Yes,  but  really  violently,  madly  in  love  to  the  exclusion  of 
everything  else  in  the  world?" 

"Kiss  me,"  said  Jenny,  answering  him  from  her  heart. 

"Kissing's  too  easy,"  said  Maurice.  "Kissing  proves  nothing. 
You've  probably  kissed  dozens  of  men." 

"Well,  why  not?" 

"Why  not?  Good  Heavens,  if  I  give  up  my  whole  being  to 
you,  do  you  mean  to  say  you're  not  going  to  think  anything  of 
kissing  dozens  of  men?" 

"Don't  be  silly.    To  begin  with,  they  did  all  the  kissing." 

"That  makes  no  difference." 

"I  think  it  makes  all  the  difference." 

"I  don't,"  he  maintained. 

"I  do." 

"Look  here,  don't  let's  quarrel,"  he  said. 

"I'm  not  quarrelling.     You  began." 

"All  right.     I  know  I  did.    Only  do  think  things  out." 

"What's  the  matter  with  your  brain  to-night?"  Jenny 
asked. 

"Why?" 

"You've  taken  a  sudden  craze  for  thinking." 

"Oh,  do  be  serious,"  he  said  petulantly.  "Here  are  we. 
We  meet.  We  fall  in  love  at  once.  We  roam  about  London 
in  a  sort  of  mist  of  love  and  we  haven't  settled  anything." 

"Why  can't  we  go  on  roaming  about,  as  you  call  it?" 

"We  can — up  to  a  point.    Only "  he  hesitated. 

"Only  what?" 

"Look  here.  Are  you  sure  I'm  the  right  person,  not  a  pos- 
sible, but  the  person  you've  dreamed  of,  thought  of?" 

"I'm  sure  you're  a  darling." 

Jenny  had  no  use  for  subtleties,  no  anxiety  to  establish  the 
derivation  of  an  affection  which  existed  as  a  simple  fact.  She 
was  not  a  girl  to  whose  lips  endearing  epithets  came  easily. 
She  had  many  words  ready  to  describe  everything  except  her 
deepest  emotions.     In  love  she  became  shy  of  herself.     Maurice 


Loves  Halcyon  169 

had  a  stock  of  sweet  vocatives  which  she  would  have  been  too 
proud  to  imitate.  "Darling"  said  what  she  wished  to  say,  and 
it  was  difficult  even  to  say  that. 

"Well,  do  you  want  anybody  else?"  he  asked. 

"No." 

"You  won't  get  tired  of  me  in  another  month?" 

"Don't  be  silly." 

"You  said  the  other  day  you  didn't  fust  anybody.  Do  you 
mean  to  say  seriously  that  you  don't  trust  me?" 

"I  suppose  I  do.    You're  different." 

"Only  suppose?"  asked  Maurice. 

"Well,  I  do." 

"You're  not  certain.  Great  heavens,  child,  can't  you  see 
what  a  terrible  thing  that  is  to  say?" 

"I  don't  see  that  it's  so  very  terrible." 

"But  it  kills  me  dead.  I  feel  all  the  time  you  think  I'm 
masquerading.  I  feel  like  a  figure  with  a  mask  in  a  carnival. 
I  meet  you  in  another  mask.  I  say,  'Take  it  ofiE,'  and  you 
won't.      You  shrivel  up." 

"I  don't  know  who  you're  getting  angry  with,"  said  Jenny. 
"I  haven't  said  nothing." 

"Nothing!"  cried  Maurice.  "It's  nothing  to  tell  somebody 
who  adores  you — good  heavens,  it's  raining  now!  Of  course  it 
would  rain  in  the  middle  of  grappling  with  a  situation.  What 
a  damnable  climate  this  is!" 

"I'm  glad  you're  going  to  quarrel  with  the  weather  a  bit  for 
a  change,"  said  Jenny.    "I  think  you're  in  a  very  nasty  mood." 

"You  don't  understand  me,"  said  Maurice. 

"I  don't  want  to."     She  spoke  coldly. 

"Jenny,  I'm  sorry  I  said  that.     Darling  girl,  do  forgive  me." 

The  wind  had  risen  to  half  a  gale.  Heath  Street  was  full 
of  people  hurrying  to  shelter,  and  the  entrance  to  the  Tube 
station  was  crowded. 

"Don't  be  angry  with  me,"  Maurice  whispered  as  the  lift 
stopped.     "I  was  tired  and  foolish.    Jenny,  I'm  sorry." 

"If  any  other  man  had  spoken  like  you  spoke,"  said  Jenny, 


1 7  o  Carnival 

"I'd  have  got  up  and  gone  away  and  never  seen  him  again, 
not  ever,  not  however  much  I  might  want  to,  I  wouldn't  let 
myself.     I  couldn't." 

Further  discussion  was  killed  by  the  noise  of  the  train,  and 
Jenny  and  Maurice  could  only  sit  speechless,  gazing  at  a  long 
line  of  damp  people,  most  of  them  carrying  rain-dabbled  bunches 
of  Michaelmas  daisies.  By  the  time  Piccadilly  was  reached 
Maurice  was  himself  again,  full  of  plans  for  to-morrow's 
birthday  party. 

"Seeing  those  people  in  the  Tube  with  those  bluish  flowers, 
what  d'ye  call  them,  made  me  think  of  a  party  I  had  for  my 
birthday  when  I  lived  with  an  aunt  in  the  country,"  said 
Jenny. 

As  it  was  not  yet  time  for  her  to  go  into  the  theater,  they 
turned  aside  into  the  Monico  and  drank  Quinquina  Dubonnet 
while  the  final  arrangements  were  being  made  for  the  party. 

"Now,  who  exactly  is  coming?"  asked  Maurice. 

"Irene,  if  she's  well  enough,  and  Elsie  Crauford,  who  isn't 
bad,  but  who's  got  to  be  told  off  sometimes,  and  Madge  Wil- 
son, who  you  haven't  met,  but  she's  a  pretty  girl,  and  Maud 
Chapman  and  perhaps  Gladys  West.  Oh,  and  can't  I  bring 
Lilli  Vergoe?  She's  a  bit  old — you  know — but  she's  a  nice 
girl  and  I  used  to  know  her  when  I  was  little." 

"Right,"  said  Maurice.  "That  makes  seven.  Then  there'll 
be  me  and  Castleton  and  Cunningham  and  Ronnie  Walker  and 
probably  one  or  two  odd  ones'll  drop  in.  You'll  turn  up  about 
four — eh?  It's  lucky  your  birthday  comes  on  a  Sunday,  Must 
you  go  now  ?  All  right,  my  sweet.  Till  to-morrow.  By  Jove, 
we'll  have  a  great  time,  won't  we?" 

"Rather,"  said  Jenny. 

Then  just  as  she  prepared  to  cross  to  the  other  side  of  Picca- 
dilly, from  the  island  on  which  they  were  standing,  Maurice 
called  her  back. 

"Jenny,  darling,  I  am  forgiven,  aren't  I?" 

"Of  course." 

She  looked  back  before  she  turned  the  corner  into  Regent 


hove  s    Halcyon  171 

Street  and  waved  to  him.  He  sighed  and  went  off  very  happy 
to  meet  Castleton  for  dinner. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Jenny  that  she  issued  her  invita- 
tions very  coldly.  Most  girls  grew  enthusiastic  over  such 
events,  but  Jenny  did  not  believe  in  "showing  herself  up"  by 
demonstrations  of  delight. 

"Coming  to  tea  with  that  friend  of  mine  to-moTow?"  she 
asked  Madge  Wilson. 

"Of  course  I  am,  duck,  I'd  love  it,"  said  Madge,  a  round- 
faced,  fluffy-haired  girl,  pretty,  but  always  apt  to  be  mistaken 
for  somebody  else. 

"It's  nothing  to  rave  over,"  said  Jenny.  "It's  in  a  studio 
something  like  your  mother's  shop.  But  there's  a  jolly  fine 
piano  and  I  daresay  it  won't  be  bad." 

"I  shall  love  it,"  said  Madge. 

"Well,  don't  wave  too  many  flags." 

To  the  other  girls  Jenny  offered  the  entertainment  casually, 
like  a  chocolate-cream. 

Then  she  went  to  look  for  Lilli  Vergoe  in  the  dressing-room 
of  the  second  line  of  girls.  Lilli  seemed  much  surprised  by  the 
invitation. 

"You  don't  want  me,"  she  said. 

"Don't  be  silly.    Wliy  ever  not?" 

"Look  at  me." 

"I  can't  see  nothing  the  matter." 

"I  ask  you,  do  I  look  like  a  birthday  party?  Never  mind, 
kiddie,  I'll  come." 

"Don't  make  a  favor  of  it  old  girl.  Only  I  thought  you'd 
like  it." 

"Why  don't  you  ever  come  up  to  Cranbourne  Street  and 
see  me?"  asked  Lilli. 

"You're  always  miserable.     It  gets  on  my  nerves." 

"I  wish  you  would  come  sometimes.  You've  never  been 
since  that  day  you  told  me  you'd  joined  the  ballet." 

"Well,  vou  was  Melancholy  Snrah   that   day,  wasn't   you. 

Lilli?" 

12 


172  Carnival 


The  call-boy's  summons  closed  the  conversation,  and  Jenny 
ran  off  to  her  own  dressing-room  for  the  last  touch  of  powder. 

When  she  came  out  of  the  theater  that  night,  it  was  blowing 
a  full  October  gale.  There  was  nobody  by  the  stage  door  in 
whom  she  felt  the  slightest  interest,  so  without  loitering  and 
with  pleasant  anticipation  of  to-morrow's  fun,  she  went  straight 
home. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  was  sitting  by  the  kitchen  fire  when  Jenny 
got  back. 

"You're  early,"  she  said. 

"I  know.  There  wasn't  anything  to  stay  out  for.  It's  a 
terrible  night,  pelting  in  rain.  Shame  after  the  glorious 
weather  we've  been  having.    It's  my  birthday  to-morrow,  too." 

"Good  gracious!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "And  I'd  for- 
gotten all  about  it." 

"You  always  do,"  said  Jenny. 

"I  ought  to  have  remembered  this  time.  It  was  weather 
just  like  we've  been  having  before  you  were  born,  and  it  come 
on  to  blow  and  rain  just  like  this  the  very  night.  Twenty 
years!     Tut-tut!" 

"I  don't  feel  a  day  older  than  fourteen,"  asserted  Jenny. 

"Tell  me,  do  you  enjoy  being  alive?"  asked  Mrs.  Raeburn. 

"Oh,  what  a  question!    Of  course  I  do." 

"You  don't  ever  feel  it  was  a  pity  you  ever  come  into  the 
world?" 

"Of  course  I  don't.  Why  should  I?  I  think  I'm  a  very 
lucky  girl." 

"You  don't  ever  tell  me  anything  about  yourself,"  said  Mrs. 
Raeburn.     "So  I  don't  know." 

"There's  nothing  to  tell." 

"I  wish  you'd  get  married." 

"Whatever  for?" 

"Aren't  you  a  bit  gay?" 

"Gay!     Of  course  not." 

"I  wish  you'd  settle  down,"  urged  the  mother.  "There's  a 
lot  of  nice  young  chaps  as  would  be  glad  to  marry  you." 


Love  s   Halcyon  i  7  3 

"But  I  don't  want  to  be  married.  I  sha'n't  ever  get  mar- 
ried. Ugh!  Besides,  what's  going  on  as  I  am  done?  I'm 
enjoying  myself," 

"Too  much,  I'm  afraid,"  said  her  mother. 

"I  don't  want  to  get  married,"  Jenny  repeated.  "I  don't 
see  that  you  did  much  good  to  yourself  by  getting  married.  I 
think  you  threw  yourself  away.  Everybody  must  have  liked 
you  when  you  was  a  girl,  and  you  go  and  marry  Dad.  I  think 
j-iou  were  potty.  And  yet  you  want  me  to  do  the  same.  I 
can't  understand  people." 

"Why  couldn't  you  have  been  nicer  to  that  young  baker 
chap?" 

"Young  baker  chap?  Yes,  then  I  woke  up.  Him!  Why, 
he  used  to  hang  his  shoulders  up  when  he  took  of?  his  coat. 
Besides,  he's  common." 

"You're  getting  very  dainty." 

"Well,  look  at  the  men  you  want  me  to  marry.  Why — 
they're  awful — like  navvies  half  of  them.  Oh,  don't  carry  on, 
mother.     I  know  what  I  want." 

"Jenny,"  said  her  mother  sharply,  "you  haven't  done  any- 
thing wrong,  have  you?" 

"Of   course   not." 

"Don't  do  anything  wrong,  there's  a  good  girl.  I  was  very 
upset  about  Edie,  but  nothing  to  what  I  should  be  about  you." 

"This  little  girl's  all  right.  WTiat's  the  matter  with  going 
to  bed?" 

"You  go  on  up.    I'll  wait  for  your  father." 

"You're  in  a  funny  mood  to-night,  Mrs.  Raeburn,"  said  her 
daughter,     "Good  night." 

When  she  reached  the  bedroom  Jenny  woke  up  her  sister. 

"Look  here,  young  May,  you  haven't  said  nothing  to  mother, 
have  you,  about  My  Friend  the  Prince?" 

"Of  course  not,  you  great  stupid." 

"Well,  don't  you,  that's  all,  because  I'll  go  straight  off  and 
live  with  one  of  the  girls  if  you  ever  dared  say  a  word  about 
him.     Mother  wouldn't  understand  there's  nothing  in  it." 


174  Carnival 

"You  know  your  own  business  best,"  said  May  sleepily. 

"That's  quite  right,"  Jenny  agreed,  and  began  to  undress 
herself  to  a  sentimental  tune  and  the  faint  tinkle  of  hairpins 
falling  on  the  toilet-table. 

In  bed,  she  thought  affectionately  of  Maurice,  of  his  gayety 
and  pleasant  manner  of  speech,  of  his  being  a  gentleman.  He 
must  be  a  gentleman  because  he  never  said  so.  Other  girls  had 
love  affairs  with  gentlemen,  but,  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
she  believed  they  were  all  swankers.  At  any  rate  Maurice  and 
Colonel  Walpole  were  different  from  Irene's  Danby  (long 
idiot)  and  Madge  Wilson's  Berthold  (dirty  little  "five  to 
two!")  and  Elsie  Crauford's  Willie  (him!),  all  examples  of 
swank.  Still  in  some  ways  it  was  a  pity  that  Maurice  was  a 
gentleman.  It  would  never  mean  a  wedding.  Those  photo- 
graphs of  his  mother  and  sisters  had  crushed  that  idea.  Even 
if  he  asked  her  to  marry  him,  she  wouldn't.  Other  girls  might 
brag  about  their  education,  their  schools  in  Paris,  their  better 
days  and  dead  gentlemen  fathers,  but  they  were  all  ballet  girls, 
not  one  of  the  Mrs.  Bigmouths  could  get  away  from  that  fact. 
Ballet  girls!  They  got  a  laugh  in  comic  songs.  Ballet  girls 
and  mothers-in-law!  They  might  gabble  in  a  corner  to  each 
other  and  simper  and  giggle  and  pretend,  but  they  were  ballet- 
hoppers.  And  what  of  it?  Why  not?  Wasn't  a  ballet  girl  as 
good  as  anybody  else?  Surely  as  good  as  a  stuck-up  chorus 
girl,  who  couldn't  dance  and  couldn't  act  and  couldn't  even 
sing  sometimes.  They  might  be  fine  women  with  massive 
figures  or  they  might  have  sweetly  pretty  Chevy  Chases  and 
not  mind  what  they  did  after  supper,  but  they  weren't  any 
better  than  ballet  girls. 

After  all,  Maurice  did  not  look  down  on  her.  He  did  not 
patronize  her.  He  loved  her.  She  loved  him.  With  that 
thought  flooding  her  imagination,  Jenny  fell  asleep  and  lay 
buried  in  her  deep  white  pillow  like  a  rosebud  in  a  snowdrift. 


chapter  XVII:  Columbine  Asleep 

COLUMBINE  lay  sleeping  on  her  heart.  The  long 
white  hands  were  clasped  beneath  those  cheeks  round 
which  tumbled  the  golden  curls.  The  coverlet,  thrown 
back  in  a  restless  dream,  revealed  her  bent  arms  bare  to  the 
elbow.  The  nightgown  allowed  a  dim  outline  of  her  shoulder 
to  appear  faintly,  and  where  a  pale  blue  bow  had  come  untied, 
the  dimple  in  her  throat  was  visible.  The  gay,  deep  eyes  were 
closed  beneath  azure  lids,  but  the  pencilled  eyebrows  still 
slanted  mockingly,  and  round  her  red  lips  was  the  curve  of 
laughter.  Awake,  her  complexion  had  the  fragility  of  rosy 
porcelain:  in  sleep  the  color  fled,  leaving  it  dead  white  as  new 
ivory. 

Columbine  lay  sleeping,  a  miniature  stolen  from  the  world's 
collection.  The  night  wore  on.  The  wind  shook  the  old 
house.     Dawn  broke  tempestuously. 

Now  should  Harlequin  have  hurried  down  the  unreal  street 
and,  creeping  in  magically,  have  kissed  her  a  welcome  to  the 
sweet  and  careless  "twenties"  that  would  contain  the  best  of 
his  Columbine's  life. 

175 


chapter  XVIII:  Sweet  and  Twenty 

THE  studio,  looking  very  cheerful  for  Jenny's  birthday, 
had  achieved  a  Sabbath  tidiness.  It  was,  to  be  sure, 
a  tidiness  more  apparent  than  real,  inasmuch  as  it 
consisted  of  pushing  every  disorderly  object  into  a  corner  and 
covering  the  accumulation  with  an  old  Spanish  cope.  Beneath 
this  semicircle  of  faded  velvet  lay  onions  and  sealing-wax, 
palette,  brushes,  bits  of  cardboard,  a  mixture  of  knives  and 
forks,  a  tin  of  pineapple  still  undefeated,  many  unanswered 
letters,  a  tweed  overcoat,  and  other  things  that  gave  more  to 
utility  than  beauty. 

The  fire  blazed  in  the  big  fireplace  and  rippled  in  reflection 
about  the  sloping  ceiling.  Chairs  were  set  in  a  comfortable 
crescent  round  the  tea-table,  and  looked  as  invitingly  empty 
as  the  Venetian  mirror.  The  teacups,  where  each  one  held 
the  fire's  image,  showed  an  opal  in  the  smooth  porcelain.  An- 
ticipation brooded  upon  the  apartment,  accentuated  by  the  bell 
of  a  neighboring  church  that  rang  in  a  quick  monotone.  In 
the  high  deal  ingle  sat  three  young  men  smoking  long  clay  pipes; 
and  by  the  window  facing  the  river  Maurice  stood  breathing 
upon  the  glass  in  order  to  record  his  love's  name  in  evanescent 
charactery  upon  the  misted  surface. 

At  last  the  monotonous  bell  ceased  its  jangling.  Big  Ben 
thundered  the  hour  of  four,  and  the  host,  throwing  up  the 
window,  leaned  out  to  a  gray,  foggy  afternoon. 

"Here's  Jennj ,"  he  cried,  drawing  back  so  quickly  into  the 
studio  that  he  banged  his  head  against  the  frame  of  the  win- 
dow.   The  three  young  men  in  the  ingle  rose  and,  knocking  out 

176 


Sweet  and  Twenty  177 

their  pipes,  stood  with  their  backs  to  the  fire  in  an  attitude  of 
easy  expectation.  IMaurice  by  this  time  was  dashing  out  into 
the  street  to  welcome  Jenny,  who  was  accompanied  by  Irene. 

"Hurrah!"  he  said.  "I  was  afraid  you  might  get  lost.  How 
are  you  now?"  he  went  on,  turning  to  Irene. 

"I'm  quite  all  right  now,"  replied  the  latter. 

"She's  in  the  best  of  pink,"  said  Jenny. 

"Pink  enough  to  climb  all  these  stairs?"  asked  Maurice, 
laughing. 

"I  expect  so,"  said  Irene. 

"Any  of  the  others  come  yet?"  Jenny  inquired  on  the  way 
up. 

"Only  Castleton  and  Cunningham  and  Ronnie  Walker." 

"I  mean  any  of  the  girls?" 

"No,  you're  the  first — and  fairest." 

Irene,  for  all  her  optimism,  was  beginning  to  feel  ex- 
hausted. 

"I  say,  young  Jenny,  does  your  friend  here — Maurice — I 
suppose  I  can  call  him  Maurice?" 

"Idiot!     Of  course." 

"Does  Maurice  live  much  higher?" 

"Yes,  you  may  well  ask,"  said  Jenny.  "What!  He's  Sky- 
scraping  Bill,  if  you  only  knew." 

"We're  nearly  there,"  said  Maurice  apologetically.  Outside 
the  door  of  the  studio  they  paused. 

"What  are  their  unnatural  names?"  asked  Jenny,  digging 
Maurice  as  she  spoke. 

"Cunningham,  Castleton  and  Walker." 

"They  sound  like  the  American  Comedy  Trio  that  got  the 
bird.  You  remember,  Ireen.  Who  cares?  I  shall  call  them 
Swan  and  Edgar  for  short." 

"That's  only  two." 

"Oh,  well,  I  can  remember  Walker." 

Maurice  opened  the  door,  and  Cunningham,  Castleton  and 
Walker  advanced  to  make  their  bows. 

"This  is  Miss  Pearl,  and  this  is  Miss  Dale." 


178  Carnival 

"Pleased  to  meet  you,"  said  Irene. 

Jenny  said  nothing,  but  shook  hands  silently,  taking  the 
measure  of  the  trio  with  shrewd  and  vivid  glances. 

"Sit  down,  won't  you?"  said  Cunningham. 

"Have  a  chair?"  Walker  suggested. 

Castleton  looked  at  Jenny. 

"Isn't  he  tall?"  she  commented.  "Doesn't  he  remind  you  of 
somebody?" 

"No,"  said  Irene  vaguely. 

"He  does  me.  That  Russian  juggler — you  know — who  was 
struck  on  Queenie  Danvers.  l[ou  know — the  one  we  used 
to  call  Fuzzy  Bill." 

"Oh,  him?"  said  Irene. 

"Call  me  Fuzzy  Bill,  won't  you?"  put  in  Castleton.  "It's 
a  pleasantly  descriptive  name.  I  shall  answer  to  that."  In- 
deed, he  did,  for  from  that  moment  he  became  "Fuz"  and 
never  heeded   a  summons  expressed  differently. 

Just  then  there  was  a  ring  at  the  front  door,  and  downstairs 
Maurice  rushed  to  admit  the  visitors.  Presently  he  came  up 
again. 

"Damned  kids,"  he  grumbled. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  they  fetched  you  all  that  way  for 
nothing?"  exclaimed  Jenny. 

"It's  good  for  him,"  Ronnie  Walker  asserted. 

"Yes,  but  what  a  dreadful  thing,"  said  Jenny.  "Fancy 
tearing  all  that  way  for  nothing.     I  should  go  mad." 

Another  ring  punctuated  Jenny's  indignation.  Everybody  to 
be  forewarned  ran  to  the  window. 

"It  is  them  this  time.  Gladys!  Elsie!"  she  called.  Then 
in  critical  commentary :    "What  a  dreadful  hat  Elsie's  got  on." 

"She  bought  it  yesterday. 

"I  don't  think,"  said  Jenny.     "Or  if  she  did,  it  must  have 

lain  in  the  window  and  got   forgotten  since  the  year  before 

last.     Besides,  what  a  shocking  color.    It's  like  anchovy  paste." 

Madge  Wilson  and  Maudie  Chapman  now  appeared  from 

round    a    corner,  and,    since    Maurice   was    already    on    his 


Sweet  and  Twenty  179 

way   downstairs,   Jenny    ran    after   him    to    prevent    a    double 
journey. 

"Wait,  wait,"  she  called  after  him.  "Madge  and  Maudie 
r.re  coming,  too." 

He  stopped  and  waved  to  her. 

"Jenny — quick,  one  kiss — over  the  banisters.     Do." 

"Do,  do,  do,  I  want  you  to,"  she  mocked  in  quotation.  But 
all  the  same  she  kissed  him. 

"I  absolutely  adore  you,"  he  whispered.  "Do  you  love  me 
as  much  to-day  as  you  did  yesterday?" 

"Oh,  I  couldn't  answer  all  that  in  my  head.  I  should  have 
to  put  it  down  on  paper." 

"No,  don't  tease.     Do  you?     Do  you?" 

"Of  course,  baby,"  she  assured  him. 

"Angel!"  he  shouted,  and  rushed  downstairs  two  steps  at  a 
time  to  admit  the  bunch  of  guests  on  his  doorstep. 

In  a  minute  or  two  the  studio  was  full  of  introductions,  in 
the  middle  of  which  Maudie  Chapman,  a  jolly  girl  with  a  big 
nose  and  a  loud  voice,  explained  the  adventures  of  Madge  and 
herself  in  arriving  at  422  Grosvenor  Road. 

"Where  we  got  to,  my  dear,  well,  that  wants  knowing.  I 
was  saying,  when  we  got  off  the  tram  at  Vauxhall  Bridge, 
'Wherever  is  this  man's  house?'  and  Madge  she  was  giggling 
and  then  I  asked  the  time,  and  it  was  only  half-past  three,  and 
I  said,  'Whatever  shall  we  do,  we're  most  shocking  early.'  So 
we  got  inside  a  big  building  near  here — full  of  pictures  and  a 
pond  with  gold-fish.  I  thought  at  first  it  was  an  aquarium,  and 
then  we  saw  some  statues  and  I  thought  it  was  a  Catholic 
church." 

"Isn't  she  a  lad?"  said  Jenny,  admiring  the  spirited  piece  of 
narrative. 

"Well,  we  had  a  good  look  at  the  pictures,  uhich  we  didn't 
think  much  of,  and  I  slipped  on  the  floor  and  burnt  my  hand 
on  a  sort  of  grating,  and  then  we  couldn't  find  the  way  out. 
We  couldn't  find  the  way  out.  We  got  upstairs  somewhere, 
and  I  called  out,   'Management,'  and  a  fellow  with  his  hair 


i8o  Carnival 

nailed  down  and  spectacles,  said:  'Are  you  looking  for  the 
Watts?'  and  I  said,  'No,  we're  looking  for  the  What  Ho's!' 
and  he  said,  "You've  made  a  mistake,  miss;  they're  in  the 
National  Gallery,'  and  Madge,  you  know  what  a  shocking 
giggler  she  is,  she  burst  out  laughing  and  I  didn't  know  where 
to  look.  So  I  said,  'Can  you  tell  me  where  Grosvenor  Road 
is?'  and  he  looked  very  annoyed  and  walked  off." 

"Oh,  but  it  really  was  difficult  to  find  the  way  out,"  Madge 
corroborated. 

"And  what  did  you  think  of  the  pictures?"  asked  Ronnie 
Walker,  who  was  a  painter  himself  and  still  young  enough 
to  be  interested  in  a  question's  answer. 

"Oh,  don't  ask  me,"  said  Maudie. 

"Nor  me,"  said  Madge. 

"They  never  looked  at  no  pictures,"  said  Jenny.  "I  bet 
you  they  was  all  the  time  trying  to  get  off  with  the  keeper,  I 
know  Madge  and  Maudie." 

Castleton  suddenly  laughed  very  loudly. 

"What's  Fuz  laughing  at?"  asked  Jenny. 

"I  was  thinking  of  Madge  and  Maudie  getting  off  with  the 
Curator  of  the  Tate  Gallery.  It  struck  me  as  funny.  I 
apologize." 

Jenny  looked  at  him  suspiciously.  Castleton,  however,  large, 
wide-faced  and  honest,  could  not  be  malicious. 

"Well,  they  do.  They  did  at  the  Zoo  once.  Only  he  got 
annoyed  when  they  asked  him  if  he  slept  in  a  cage." 

At  this  point  the  bell  interrupted  reminiscence. 

"That  must  be  Lilli  Vergoe,"  said  Jenny.  "I'll  go  down 
and  let  her  in.  She'll  feel  uncomfortable  walking  into  a  crowd 
by  herself." 

"I'll  come  as  well,"  Maurice  volunteered. 

The  two  of  them  took  almost  longer  to  descend  than  to 
come  up,  so  much  discussion  was  there  of  the  immortality  of 
affection,  so  much  weighing  up  of  comparative  emotion.  When 
they  reached  the  studio  with  Lilli,  the  party  had  settled  down 
into  various  groups  of  conversation. 


Sweet  and  Twenty  i8 


"What  about  tea?"  said  the  host.  "Jenny  shall  pour 
out." 

"But  what  a  terrible  teapot,"cried  the  latter  when  she  had 
accepted  the  task.  "It's  like  my  sister's  watering-can.  What's 
the  matter  with  it?" 

"Age,"  said  Castlcton  solemnly.  "It's  old  Lowestoft.  If 
you  look  inside,  you'll  see  'A  Present  from  Lowestoft.'  " 

"Shut  up,"  said  Maurice,  "and  pass  the  Chelsea  buns." 

"A  bit  of  old  Chelsea,"  murmured  Castleton. 

"Shut  up  making  rotten  jokes,"  said  Cunningham. 

"You  must  excuse  him,"  said  Maurice.  "He  isn't  funny, 
but  he's  very  nice.  Good  Lord!"  he  went  on.  "I've  never 
wished  Jenny  'many  happy  returns  of  the  day.'  " 

"Yes,  it's  a  pity  you  waited  till  after  she's  seen  those  buns," 
said  Castleton.     "However!" 

"And  the  cake,"  said  Maurice,  diving  into  the  cupboard. 

"Don't  look  so  sad,"  Castleton  whispered  to  the  guest  of 
honor.     "It  isn't  really  a  tombstone." 

"Isn't  he  awful?"  said  Jenny,  laughing. 

"I  say,"  cried  Maurice.     "Look  here!" 

Across  the  white  cake  was  written  in  pink  icing:  "Sacred 
to  the  Memory  of  a  Good  Appetite." 

"Rotten!"  said   Cunningham.     "Castleton,  of  course." 

"Of  course,"  said  Maurice.  "And  now  we  haven't  got  any 
candles." 

"Let's  light  the  gas   instead,"  Castleton  suggested. 

"You  are  mad,"  said  Jenny. 

Tea  went  on  with  wild  laughter,  with  clinking  of  saucers  and 
spoons,  with  desperate  carving  of  the  birthday  cake,  with  sol- 
emn jokes  from  Castleton,  with  lightning  caricatures  from 
Ronnie  Walker. 

Once  Jenny  whispered  to  Maurice: 

"Why  did  you  say  I  shouldn't  like  Fuz?  I  think  he's  nice. 
You  know,  funny ;  but  very  nice." 

"I'm  glad,"  Maurice  whispered  back.  "I  like  you  to  like 
my  friends." 


1 8  2  Carnival 

After  tea  they  all  wandered  round  the  studio  in  commentary 
of  its  contents. 

"Maurice!"  said  Castleton,  stopping  before  the  wax  model 
of  Aphrodite.  "You  don't  feed  your  pets  regularly  enough. 
This  lady's  outrageously  thin." 

"Isn't  he  shocking?"  said  Maudie.  "What  would  you  do 
with  him?" 

"He's  a  nut,"  said  Madge. 

"Isn't  he?"  said  Elsie  and  Gladys  in  chorus.  These  two 
very  seldom  penetrated  beyond  the  exclamatory  interrogative. 

"A  nut,  you  think?"  said  Castleton.  "A  Brasilero^  of  the 
old  breed  with  waxed  pistachios  and  cocoanut-matted  locks?" 

"Oh,  dry  up,"  said  Maurice.  "I  want  the  girls  to  look  at 
this  dancing  girl." 

"No  one  couldn't  stand  in  that  posish,"  said  Jenny.  "Could 
they,  Lilli?" 

"Not  very  easily,"  the  latter  agreed. 

"Really?"  asked  Maurice,  somewhat  piqued. 

"Of  course  they  could,"  Maudie  contradicted. 

"Certainly,"  said  Irene,  highly  contemptuous. 

"I  say  they  couldn't  then,"  Jenny  persisted. 

"She'd  be  a  rotten  dancer  if  she  couldn't." 

"I  don't  think  so,"  Jenny  said  frigidly. 

The  girls  unanimously  attempted  to  get  into  the  position 
conceived  by  Maurice;  but  in  the  end  they  all  had  to  agree  that 
Jenny  and  Lilli  were  right.     The  pose  was  impossible. 

"Is  that  your  mother?"  asked  Madge,  pointing  to  Mona 
Lisa. 

"Don't  be  silly,  Madge  Wilson,"  Jenny  corrected.  "It's  a 
picture,  and  I  don't  think  much  of  her,"  she  continued.  "What 
a  terrible  mouth!  Her  hands  is  nice,  though — very  nice.  And 
what's  all  those  rocks  at  the  back — low  tide  at  Clacton,  I  should 
think." 

"But  don't  you  like  her  marvelous  smile?"  asked  Maurice. 

"I  don't  call  that  a  smile." 

"I   knew  those   flute-players  annoyed  her,"  said   Castleton. 


Sweet  and  Twenty  183 

"Down  with  creative  criticism.  She's  nothing  but  a  lady  with 
a  bad  temper." 

"Of  course  she  is,"  said  Jenny. 

"Would  you  smile,  Jenny,  if  Ronnie  here  painted  you  with 
a  gramophone  behind  a  curtain?" 

"No,  I  shouldn't." 

"Catch  the  fleeting  petulance,  and  you  become  as  famous  as 
Leonardo,  my  Ronnie." 

Philip  IV  was  voted  a  little  love  with  rather  too  big  a  head, 
and  the  Prince  of  Orange  was  a  dear.  Botticelli's  Venus  was 
not  alluded  to.  The  acquaintanceship  was  not  considered  ripe 
enough  to  justify  any  comment  in  that  direction;  although  later 
on  Jenny,  her  eyes  pectinated  with  mirth  and  flashing  wick- 
edly, sang,  pointing  to  the  embarrassed  goddess :  "She  sells  sea- 
shells  on  the  seashore."  Primavera  concluded  the  tour  of  in- 
spection, and  by  some  Primavera  herself  was  thought  to  be  not 
unlike  Jenny. 

"She's  more  like  one  of  those  angels  with  candles  at  Ber- 
lin," said  Ronnie  Walker. 

"Anyway,"  said  Maurice,  with  a  note  of  satisfaction,  "she's 
a  Botticelli." 

"Well,  now  you've  all  settled  my  position  in  life,"  said 
Jenny,  "what's  Irene?" 

But  somehow  it  was  not  so  interesting  to  discover  Irene's 
prototype,  and  her  similarity  to  the  ideal  of  any  single  old 
master  was  left  undecided. 

Now  came  the  singing  of  coon  songs  with  ridiculous  words 
and  haunting  refrains,  while  dusk  descended  upon  London. 
IVIaudie  was  at  the  piano,  where  a  candle  flickered  on  each  side 
of  the  music  and  lit  up  the  size  of  her  nose.  When  all  the 
favorites  of  the  moment  had  been  sung,  older  and  now  almost 
forgotten  successes  were  rescued  from  the  dust  of  obscurity. 

"We  are  among  the  'has  beens,'  "  said  Jenny.  "Why,  I 
remember  that  at  the  Islington  panto  when  I  went  to  see  you, 
Lilli,  and  that's  donkey's  years  ago.  We've  properly  gone 
back  to  the  year  dot." 


i84 


Carnival 


Gradually,  however,  the  jolly  dead  tunes  produced  a  senti- 
mental effect  upon  the  party,  commemorating  as  they  did  many 
bygone  enjoyments.  The  sense  of  fleeting  time,  evoked  by  the 
revival  of  discarded  melodies,  began  to  temper  their  spirits. 
They  sang  the  choruses  more  softly,  as  if  the  undated  tunes 
had  become  fragile  with  age  and  demanded  a  gentler  treat- 
ment. Perhaps  in  the  gathering  gloom  each  girl  saw  herself 
once  more  in  short  frocks.  Perhaps  Lilli  Vergoe  distinguished 
the  smiling  ghost  of  old  ambition.  Certainly  Jenny  thought  of 
Mr.  Vergoe  and  Madame  Aldavini  and  the  Four  Jumping 
Beans. 

Maudie  Chapman  suddenly  jumped  up: 
"Somebody  else's  turn." 
Maurice  looked   at  Cunningham. 
"Won't  you  play  some  Chopin,  old  chap?" 
"Ail  right,"  said  Cunningham,  a  dark,  very  thin  young  man 
with  a  high,  narrow  face,  seating  himself  at  the  piano.     The 
girls  composed  themselves  to  listen  idly.     Maurice  drew  Jenny 
over  to  an  arm-chair  by  the  window.    The  studio  grew  darker. 
The  notes  of  the  piano  with  the  rapid  execution  of  the  player 
seemed  phosphorescent  in  the  candle-light.     The  fire  glowed 
crimson   and   dull.     The  atmosphere  was  wreathed  with  the 
smoke  of  many  cigarettes.    The  emotions  of  the  audience  were 
swayed  by  dreams  that,  sustained  by  music,  floated  about  the 
heavy   air  in  a  pervading  melancholy,   inexpressibly  sensuous. 
It  was  such  an  hour  as  only  music  can  attempt  to  portray. 
Here  was  youth  in  meditation  untrammeled  by  the  energy  of 
action.     Age,  wrought  upon  by  music,  may  know  regret,  but 
only  youth  can  see  aspiration  almost  incarnate.     Jenny,  buried 
in    the   arm-chair,    with    Maurice's   caressing  hand    upon    her 
cheeks,  thought  it  was  all  glorious,  thought  that  Cunningham 
played  gloriously,  that  the  river  with  a  blurred  light  was  glori- 
ous, that  love  was  glorious.     She  had  a  novel   wish  to  bring 
May  to  such  a  party,  and  wondered  if  May  would  enjoy  the 
experience.     Time  as   an   abstraction  did   not  mean   much  to 
Jenny ;  but  as  the  plangent  harmonies  wrung  the  heart  of  the 


Sweet  and  Twenty  185 


very  night  with  unattainable  desires,  she  felt  again  the  vague 
fear  of  age  tha  used  to  distress  her  before  she  met  her  lover. 
She  caught  his  hand,  clasping  it  tightly,  twisting  his  fingers 
in  a  passionate  clutch  as  if  he  were  fading  from  her  life  into 
the  shadows  all  around.  She  began  to  feel,  so  sharply  the 
music  rent  her  imagination,  a  pleasure  in  the  idea  of  instant 
death,  not  because  she  disliked  the  living  world,  but  because  she 
feared  something  that  might  spoil  the  perfection  of  love:  they 
were  too  happy.  She  knew  the  primitive  emotion  of  joy  in 
absolute  quiescence,  the  relief  of  Daphne  avoiding  responsi- 
bility. Why  could  not  she  and  ]\Iaurice  stop  still  in  an  ecstasy 
and  live  like  the  statues  opposite  glimmering  faintly?  Then, 
with  a  sudden  ardor,  life  overpowered  the  enchantment  of  re- 
pose; and  she,  leaping  to  meet  the  impulse  of  action,  conscious 
only  of  darkness  and  melody,  spurred,  perhaps,  by  one  loud  and 
solitary  chord,  pulled  Maurice  down  to  her  arms  and  kissed 
him  wildly,  almost  despairingly.  The  music  went  on  from 
ballad  to  waltz,  from  waltz  to  polonaise.  Sometimes  matches 
were  lit  for  cigarettes,  matches  that  were  topical  of  all  the  life 
in  that  room,  a  little  flame  \n  the  sound  of  music. 

At  last,  on  the  delicate  tinkle  of  a  dying  mazurka,  Cunning- 
ham stopped  quite  suddenly,  and  silence  succeeded  for  a  while. 
Outside  in  the  street  was  the  sound  of  people  walking  with 
Sabbath  footsteps.  Out  over  the  river  there  was  a  hail  from 
some  distant  loud-voiced  waterman.  The  church  bell  resumed 
its  hurried  monotone.  Castleton  got  up  and  lit  the  gas.  The 
windows  now  looked  gray  and  very  dreary;  it  was  pleasant  to 
veil  them  with  crimson  birds  and  vine-leaves.  The  fire  was 
roused  to  a  roaring  blaze;  the  girls  began  to  arrange  their  hair; 
it  was  time  to  think  of  supper.  Such  was  Jenny's  birthday — 
intolerably    fugitive. 


Chapter  XIX:   The  Gift  of  Opals 

JENNY  did  not  see  Maurice  after  the  party  until  the  fol- 
lowing night,  when  he  waited  in  the  court  to  take  her 
out. 

*'Come  quick,"  he  said.  "Quick.  Fvc  got  something  to 
show  you." 

"Well,  don't  run,"  she  commanded,  moderating  the  pace  by 
tugging  at  his  coat.     "You're  like  a  young  race-horse." 

"First  of  all,"  asked  Maurice  eagerly,  "do  you  like  opals?" 

"They're  all  right." 

"Only  all  right?" 

"Well,  I  think  they're  a  bit  like  soapsuds." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  Maurice,  "I've  bought  you  opals  for  a 
birthday  present." 

"I  do  like  them,"  she  explained,  "only  they're  unlucky." 

"Not  if  you're  an  October  girl.    They're  very  lucky  then." 

They  were  walking  through  jostling  crowds  down  Coventry 
Street  towards  the  Cafe  de  I'Afrique  where  Castleton  would 
meet  them  to  discuss  a  project  of  gayety.  Jenny's  soft  hand  on 
his  arm  was  not  successful  in  banishing  the  aggrieved  notes 
from  Maurice's  petulant  defense  of  opals. 

"Oh,  you  miserable  old  thing!"  she  said.  "Don't  look  so 
cross." 

"It's  a  little  disappointing  to  choose  a  present  and  then  be 
told  by  the  person  it's  intended  for  that  she  dislikes  it." 

"Oh,  don't  be  silly.  I  never  said  I  didn't  like  it.  How 
could  I?     I  haven't  seen  it  yet." 

"It's  hardly  worth  while  showing  it  to  you.     You  won't 

i86 


The  Gift  of  Opals  187 

like  it.     I'd  throw  it  in  the  gutter,  if  it  wasn't  for  this  beastly 
crowd  of  fools  that  will  bump  into  us  all  the  time." 

"You  are  stupid.    Give  it  to  me.    Please,  Maurice." 

"No,  I'll  get  you  something  else,"  he  retorted,  determined  to 
be  injured.  "I'm  sorry  I  can't  afford  diamonds.  I  took  a 
good  deal  of  trouble  to  find  you  something  old  and  charming. 
I  ransacked  every  curiosity  shop  in  London.  That's  why  I 
couldn't  meet  you  till  to-night.  Damned  lot  of  use  it's  been. 
I'd  much  better  have  bought  you  a  turquoise  beetle  with  pink 
topaz  eyes  or  a  lizard  in  garnets  or  a  dragon-fly  that  gave  you 
quite  a  turn,  it  was  so  like  a  real  one,  or  a " 

"Oh,  shut  up,"  said  Jenny,  withdrawing  her  arm. 

"It's  so  frightfully  disheartening." 

"But  what  are  you  making  yourself  miserable  over?  I 
haven't  said  I  don't  like  your  present.     I  haven't  seen  it." 

"No,  and  you  never  will.     Rotten  thing!" 

"You  are  unkind." 

"So  are  you." 

"Oh,  good  job." 

"You're  absolutely  heartless.  I  don't  believe  you  care  a  bit 
about  me.  I  wish  to  God  I'd  never  met  you.  I  can't  think 
about  anything  but  you.  I  can't  work.  What's  the  good  of 
being  in  love?  It's  a  fool's  game.  It's  unsettling.  It's  hope- 
less. I  think  I  won't  see  you  any  more  after  to-night.  I  can't 
stand  it." 

Jenny  had  listened  to  his  tirade  without  interruption ;  but 
now  as  they  were  passing  the  Empire,  she  stopped  suddenly, 
and  said  in  a  voice  cold  and  remote: 

"Good  night.     I'm  off." 

"But  we're  going  to  meet  Castleton.' 

"You  may  be.    I'm  not." 

"What  excuse  shall  I  make  to  him?" 

"I  don't  care  what  you  tell  him.  He's  nothing  to  me.  Nor 
you  either." 

"You  don't  mean  that?"  he  gasped. 

"Don't  I?" 
13 


I  8  8  Carnival 

"But  Jenny!  Oh,  I  say,  do  come  into  the  Afriquc.  Wc 
can't  argue  here.     People  will  begin  to  stare." 

"People!     I  thought  you  didn't  mind  about  people?" 

"Look  here,  I'm  sorry.     I  am  really.     Do  stay." 

"No,  I  don't  want  to." 

Jenny's  lips  were  set;  her  eyes  dull  with  anger. 

"I  know  I'm  a  bad-tempered  ass,"  Maurice  admitted.  "But 
do  stay.  I  meant  it  to  be  such  a  jolly  evening.  Only  I  was 
hurt  about  the  opals.  Do  stay,  Jenny.  I  really  am  frightfully 
sorry.  Won't  you  have  the  brooch?  I'm  absolutely  to  blame. 
I  deserve  anything  you  say  or  do.  Only  won't  you  stay?  Just 
this  once.     Do." 

Jenny  was  not  proof  against  such  pleading.  There  was  in 
Maurice's  effect  upon  her  character  something  so  indescribably 
disarming  that,  although  in  this  case  she  felt  in  the  right,  she, 
it  seemed,  must  always  give  way;  and  for  her  to  give  way, 
right  or  wrong,  was  out  of  order. 

"Soppy  me  again,"  was  all  she  said. 

"No,  darling  you,"  Maurice  whispered.  "Such  a  darling, 
too.  I  hope  Castleton  hasn't  arrived  yet,  I  want  to  tell  you 
all  over  again  how  frightfully  sorry  I  am." 

But  when  they  had  walked  past  the  Buddha-like  manager 
who,  massive  and  enigmatical,  broods  over  the  entrance  to  the 
cafe,  they  could  see  Castleton  in  the  corner.  It  was  a  pity; 
for  the  constraint  of  a  lovers'  quarrel,  not  absolutely  adjusted, 
hung  over  them  still  in  the  presence  of  a  third  person  before 
whom  they  had  to  simulate  ease.  Maurice,  indeed,  was  so  bois- 
terously cordial  that  Jenny  resented  his  dramatic  ability,  and, 
being  incapable  of  simulation  herself,  showed  plainly  all  was 
not  perfectly  smooth. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  our  Jenny  to-night?"  Castleton 
inquired. 

"Nothing,"  she  answered  moodily. 

"She  feels  rather  seedy,"  Maurice  explained. 

"No,  I  don't." 

"Do  you  like  the  opal  brooch?"  Castleton  asked. 


The  Gift  of  Opals  189 

"I  haven't  seen  it,"  Jenny  replied. 

"I  was  waiting  to  give  it  to  her  in  here,"  Maurice  sug- 
gested. 

Jenny,  who  was  examining  herself  in  a  pocket  mirror,  looked 
over  at  him  from  narrowing  eyes.  He  turned  to  her,  defend- 
ing himself  against  the  imputation  of  a  lie. 

"Castleton  helped  me  to  choose  it.  Look,"  he  said,  "it's  an 
old  brooch." 

He  produced  from  his  pocket  a  worn  leather  case  on  the 
faded  mauve  velvet  of  whose  lining  lay  the  brooch.  It  was 
an  opal  of  some  size  set  unusually  in  silver  filigree  with  seed 
pearls  and  brilliants, 

"It's  rather  pretty,"  Jenny  commented  without  enthusiasm. 
In  her  heart  she  loved  the  old-fashioned  trinket,  and  wanted 
to  show  her  delight  to  Maurice;  but  the  presence  of  Castleton 
was  a  barrier,  and  she  was  strangely  afraid  of  tears  that 
seemed  not  far  away.  Maurice,  who  was  by  now  thoroughly 
miserable,  offered  to  pin  the  brooch  where  it  would  look  most 
charming;  but  Jenny  said  she  would  put  it  in  her  bag,  and  he 
sat  back  in  the  chair  biting  his  lips  and  hating  Castleton  for 
not  immediately  getting  up  and  going  home.  The  latter,  real- 
izing something  was  the  matter,  tried  to  change  the  subject. 

"What  about  this  Second  Empire  masquerade  at  Covent 
Garden?" 

"I  don't  think  we  shall  be  able  to  bring  it  off.  Ronnie 
Walker  would  be  ridiculous  as  Balzac." 

"There  are  others." 

"Besides,  I  don't  think  I  want  to  be  Theophile  Gautier." 

"Don't  be,  then,"  advised  Castleton. 

"Anyway,  it's  a  rotten  idea,"  declared  Maurice. 

"What  extraordinary  tacks  your  opinions  do  take!"  retorted 
his  friend.  "Only  this  afternoon  you  were  full  of  the  most 
glittering  plans  and  had  found  a  prototype  in  1850  for  half 
your  friends." 

"I've  been  thinking  it  over,"  said  Maurice.  "And  I'm  sure 
we  can't  work  it." 


IQO  Carnival 

"Good-by,  Gustave  Flaubert,"  said  Castleton.  "I  confess  I 
regret  Flaubert;  especially  if  I  could  have  persuaded  Mrs. 
Wadman  to  be  George  Sand  and  smoke  a  cigar.  However, 
perhaps  it's  just  as  well." 

"Who's  Mrs.  Wadman?"  asked  Jenny. 

"The  aged  female  iniquity  who  'does'  for  Maurice  and  me 
at  Grosvenor  Road.  I'm  sure  on  second  thoughts  it  would 
be  unwise  to  let  her  acquire  the  cigar  habit.  I  might  be  rich 
next  year,  and  I  should  hate  to  see  her  dusting  with  a  Corona 
stuck  jauntily  between  toothless  gums." 

"Oh,  don't  be  funny,"  said  Maurice.  "You've  no  idea  how 
annoying  you  are  sometimes.  Confound  j^ou,  waiter,"  he  cried, 
turning  to  vent  his  temper  in  another  direction.  "I  ordered 
Munich  and  you've  brought  Pilsener." 

"Very  sorry,  sir,"  apologized  the  waiter. 

"It  was  I  who  demanded  the  blond  beer,"  Castleton  ex- 
plained.    Then,  as  the  waiter  retired,  he  said: 

"Why  not  get  him  to  come  as  Balzac?" 

"Who?" 

"The  waiter." 

"Don't  be  funny  any  more,"  Maurice  begged  wearily. 

"Poor  Fuz,"  said  Jenny.     "You're  crushed." 

"I  now  know  the  meaning  of  Blake's  worm  that  fllies  in  the 
heart  of  the  storm." 

Even  Castleton  was  ultimately  affected  by  the  general  de- 
pression ;  and  Jenny  at  last  broke  the  silence  by  saying  she 
must  go  home. 

"I'll  drive  you  back,"  said  Maurice. 

"Hearse  or  hansom,  sir?"  Castleton  asked. 

"Good  night,  Fuz,"  said  Jenny  on  the  pavement.  "I'll  bring 
Madge  and  Maudie  to  see  you  some  time  soon." 

"Do,"  he  answered.  "They  would  invigorate  even  a  sleepy 
pear.  Good  night,  dear  Jenny,  and  pray  send  Maurice  back 
in  a  pleasanter  mood." 

For  a  few  minutes  the  lovers  drove  along  in  silence. 

It  was  Maurice  who  spoke  first: 


The  Gift  of  Opals  191 

"Jenny,  I've  been  an  idiot,  and  spoilt  the  evening.  Do 
forgive  me,  Jenny,"  he  cried,  burying  his  face  in  her  shoulder. 
"My  vile  temper  wouldn't  have  lasted  a  moment  if  I  could 
just  have  been  kissed  once;  but  Castleton  got  on  my  nerves 
and  the  waiter  would  hover  about  all  the  time  and  everybody 
enraged  mc.     Forgive  me,  sweet  thing,  will  you?" 

Jenny  abandoning  at  once  every  tradition  of  obstinacy,  caught 
him  to  her. 

"You  silly  old  thing." 

"I  know  I  am,  and  you're  a  little  darling." 

"And  he  wasn't  ever  going  to  see  me  again.  What  a  liberty ! 
Not  ever." 

"I  am  an  insufferable  ass." 

"And  he  wished  he'd  never  met  me.  Oh,  Maurice,  you  do 
say  unkind  things." 

"Were  you  nearly  crying  once?"  he  asked.  "When  I  gave 
you  the  brooch?" 

"Perhaps." 

"Jenny,  precious  one,  are  you  nearly  crying  now?"  he  whis- 
pered. 

"No,  of  course  not." 

Yet  when  he  kissed  her  eyelids  they  were  wet. 

"Shall  I  pin  the  brooch  now?" 

She  nodded. 

"Jenny,  you  don't  know  how  I  hate  myself  for  being  unkind 
to  you.     I  hate  myself.     I  shall  fret  about  this  all  night." 

"Not  still  a  miserable  old  thing?"  she  asked,  fingering  the 
smooth  face  of  the  opal  that  had  caused  such  a  waste  of  emo- 
tion. 

"Happy  now.    So  happy."     He  sighed  on  her  breast. 

"So  am  I." 

"You're  more  to  me  every  moment." 

"Am  I?" 

"You're  so  sweet  and  patient.    Such  a  pearl,  such  a  treasure." 

"You  think  so." 

"My  little  Queen  of  Hearts  you've  a  genius  for  love." 


192  Carnival 

"What's  that?" 

"I  mean,  you're  just  right.  You  never  make  a  mistake. 
You're  patient  with  my  wretched  artistic  temperament.  Like 
a  perfect  work  of  art,  you're  a  perfect  work  of  love." 

"Maurice,  you  are  a  darling,"  she  sighed  on  the  authentic 
note  of  passionate  youth  in  love. 

"When  you  whisper  like  that,  it  takes  my  breath  away.  .  .  . 
Jenny,  are  you  ever  going  to  be  more  to  me  even  than  you  are 


now 


"What  do  you  mean,  more?"  she  asked. 

"Well,  everything  that  a  woman  can  be  to  a  man.  You  see 
I'm  an  artist,  and  an  artist  longs  for  the  completion  of  a  great 
work.  My  love  for  you  is  the  biggest  thing  in  my  life  so  far, 
and  I  long  to  complete  it.     Don't  you  understand  what  I  mean?" 

"I  suppose  I  do,"  she  said  very  quietly. 

"Are  you  going  to  let  me?" 

"Some  day  I  suppose  I  shall." 

"Not  at  once?" 

"No." 

"Why  not?    Don't  you  trust  me?" 

"Yes." 

"Well  ?" 

"Kiss  me,"  she  said.  "I  can't  explain.  Don't  let's  talk 
about  it  any  more." 

"I  can't  understand  women,"  Maurice  declared. 

"Ah!" 

She  smiled ;  but  in  the  smile  there  was  more  of  sadness  than 
mirth. 

"Why  waste  time?"  he  demanded  passionately.  "God  knows 
we  have  little  enough  time.  Jenny,  I  warn  you,  I  beg  you  not 
to  waste  time.  You're  making  a  mistake.  Like  all  girls,  you're 
keeping  one  foot  in  a  sort  of  washy  respectability." 

"Don't  go  on,"  Jenny  said.    "I've  told  you  I  will  one  day." 

"Why  not  come  abroad  with  me  if  you're  afraid  of  what 
your  people  will  say?" 

"I  couldn't.    Not  while  my  mother  was  alive." 


The  Gift  of  Opals  193 

"Well,  don't  do  that;  but  still  it's  easy  enough  not — to 
waste  time.  Your  mother  need  never  find  out.  I'm  not  a 
fool." 

"Ah,  but  I  should  feel  a  sneak." 

Maurice  sighed  at  such  scruples. 

"Besides,"  she  added,  "I  don't  want  to — not  yet.  Can't 
we  be  happy  like  we  have  been?     I  will  one  day." 

"You  can't  play  with  love,"  Maurice  warned  her. 

"I'm  not.     I'm  more  in  earnest  than  what  you  are." 

"I  don't  think  jou  are." 

"But  I  am.     Supposing  if  you  got  tired  of  me?" 

"I  couldn't." 

"Ah,  but  that's  where  men  arc  funny.  All  of  a  sudden  you 
might  take  a  sudden  fancy  to  another  girl.  And  then  what 
about  me?     What  should  I  do?" 

"It  comes  to  this,"  he  argued.  "You  don't  trust  me  yet. 
You  don't  believe  in  mc.  Good  heavens,  what  can  I  do  to 
show  you  I'm  sincere?" 

"Can't  you  wait  a  little  while?"  she  gently  asked. 

"I  must." 

"And  you  won't  ask  me  again?" 

"I  won't  promise  that." 

"Well,  not  for  a  long  time?"  Jenny  pleaded. 

"I  won't  even  promise  that.  You  see  I  honestly  think  you're 
making  a  mistake — a  mistake  for  which  you'll  be  very  sorry  one 
day.     I  wish  you  understood  my  character  better." 

"All  men  are  the  same."     She  sighed  out  the  generalization. 

"That's  absurd,  my  dear  girl.  I  might  as  well  say  all  women 
arc  the  same." 

"Well,  they  are.     They're  all  soppy." 

"Isn't  it  rather  soppy  to  go  as  far  as  you  have  with  me,  and 
not  go  farther?"     IVIaurice  spoke  tentatively. 

"Oh,  I've  properly  joined  the  soppy  brigade.  I  did  think  I 
was  different,  but  I'm  not.     I'm  well  in  the  first  line." 

"Don't  you  think,"  Maurice  suggested — "of  course,  I'm  not 
saying  you  haven't  had  plenty  of  experience — but  don't  you 


194  Carnival 

think  there's  a  difference  between  a  gentleman  and  a  man  who 
isn't  a  gentleman?" 

"I  think  gentlemen  are  the  biggest  rotters  of  all." 

"I  don't  agree  with  you." 

"I  do.  Listen.  You  asked  me  just  now  to  come  away  with 
you.    You  didn't  ask  me  to  marry  you." 

Maurice  bubbled  over  with  undelivered  explanations. 

"Wait.  I  wouldn't  marry  you  not  if  you  asked  me.  I  don't 
want  you  to  ask  me.     Only " 

"Only  what?"   Maurice  inquired  gloomily. 

"Only  if  I  did  all  yo\x  wanted,  I'd  be  giving  everything 
— more  than  you'd  give,  even  if  you  married  a  ballet  girl." 

"Do  let  me  explain,"  Maurice  begged.  "You  absolutely  mis- 
understand me.  .  .  .  Oh,  Lord,  we're  nearly  at  Hagworth 
Street.  .  .  .  I've  only  time  to  say  quite  baldly  what  I  mean. 
Look  here,  if  you  married  me  you  wouldn't  like  it. 
You  wouldn't  like  meeting  all  my  people  and  having  to  be 
conventional  and  pay  calls  and  adapt  yourself  to  a  life  that 
you  hadn't  been  brought  up  to.  I'd  marry  you  like  a  shot.  I 
don't  believe  in  class  distinctions  or  any  of  that  humbug.  But 
you'd  be  happier  not  married.  Can't  you  see  that?  You'd 
be  happier  the  other  way.  .  .  .  There's  your  turning. 
There's  no  time  for  more.  .  .  .  Only  do  think  over  what  I've 
said  and  don't  misjudge  me  .  .  .  darling  girl,  good  night." 

"Good  night." 

"A  long  kiss." 

Reasons,  policies,  plans  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  expedi- 
ency vanished  when  she  from  the  steps  of  her  home  listened  to 
the  bells  of  the  hansom  dying  away  in  the  distance,  and  when 
he,  huddled  in  a  corner  of  the  cab,  was  conscious  but  of  the 
perfume  of  one  who  was  lately  beside  him. 

In  her  bedroom  Jenny  examined  the  brooch.  Perhaps  what 
showed  more  clearly  than  anything  the  reality  of  her  love  was 
the  affection  she  felt  for  Maurice  when  he  was  away  from  her. 
She  was  never  inclined  to  criticise  the  faults  so  easily  forgotten 
in   the   charms  which   she    remembered  more   vividly.     Now, 


The  Gift  of  Opals  195 


with  the  brooch  before  her,  as  she  sat  dangling  her  legs  from 
the  end  of  the  bed,  she  recalled  lovingly  his  eagerness  to  display 
the  unfortunate  opal.  She  remembered  the  brightness  of  his 
blue  eyes  and  the  vibrant  attraction  of  his  voice.  He  was  a 
darling,  and  she  had  been  unkind  about  opals.  He  was  always 
a  darling  to  her.  He  never  jarred  her  nerves  or  probed  roughly 
a  tender  mood. 

Jenny  scarcely  sifted  so  finely  her  attitude  towards  Maurice. 
'She  summed  him  up  to  herself  in  a  generalization.  In  her 
mind's  eye  he  appeared  in  contrast  to  everybody  else.  All  that 
the  rest  of  mankind  lacked  he  possessed.  Whatever  mild  ap- 
proval she  had  vouchsafed  to  any  other  man  his  existence  oblit- 
erated. She  had  never  created  for  herself  an  ideal  whose 
tenuity  would  one  day  envelop  a  human  being.  Therefore, 
since  there  had  never  floated  through  her  day-dreams  a  nebula 
with  perfect  profile,  immense  wealth  and  euphonious  titles, 
Maurice  had  not  to  be  fitted  in  with  a  preconception.  Nor 
would  it  be  reasonable  to  identify  her  with  one  of  the  world's 
Psyches  in  love  with  the  abstraction  of  a  state  of  mind  and 
destined  to  rue  its  incarnation.  She  had,  it  may  be  granted, 
been  inclined  to  fall  in  love  in  response  to  the  demand  of  her 
being;  but  it  would  be  wrong  to  suppose  her  desire  was  grati- 
fied by  the  first  person  who  came  along.  On  the  contrary, 
Maurice  had  risen  suddenly  to  overthrow  all  that  had  gone 
before,  and,  as  it  seemed  now,  was  likely  to  overthrow  any- 
thing that  might  come  after. 

Sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  she  was  hypnotized  into  a 
meditative  coma  by  the  steady  twin  flames  of  the  candle  and 
its  reflection  in  the  toilet-glass.  She  was  invested  with  the 
accessories  favorable  to  crystal-gazing,  and  the  brooch  served 
to  concentrate  faculties  that  would  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances have  lacked  an  object.  Contrast  as  an  absolute  idea 
is  often  visualized  during  slightly  abnormal  mental  phases. 
Fever  often  fatigues  the  brain  with  a  reiteration  of  images  in 
tremendous  contrast,  generally  of  mere  size,  when  the  mind 
is  forced  to  contemplate  again  and  again  with  increasing  resent- 


196 


Carnival 


ment  the  horrible  disparity  between  a  pin's  point  and  a  py»si- 
mid.  In  Jenny's  mind  Maurice  was  contrasted  with  the  rest 
of  the  universe.  He  was  so  overpowering  and  tremendous 
that  everything  else  became  a  mere  speck.  In  fact,  during  this 
semi-trance,  Jenny  lost  all  sense  of  proportion,  and  Maurice 
became  an  obsession. 

Then  suddenly  the  flame  of  the  candle  began  to  jig  and 
flicker;  the  spell  was  broken,  and  Jenny  realized  it  would  be 
advisable  to  undress. 

Action  set  her  brain  working  normally,  and  the  vast,  absorb- 
ing generalization  faded.  She  began  to  think  again  in  detail. 
How  she  longed  for  to-morrow,  when  she  would  be  much 
nicer  to  Maurice  than  she  had  ever  been  before.  She  thought 
with  a  glow  of  the  delightful  time  in  front  of  them.  She  pic- 
tured wet  afternoons  spent  cosily  in  the  studio.  She  imagined 
herself,  tired  and  bored,  coming  down  the  court  from  the  stage 
door,  with  Maurice  suddenly  appearing  round  the  corner  to 
drive  weariness  out  of  London.  It  was  glorious  to  think  of 
someone  who  could  make  the  worst  headache  insignificant  and 
turn  the  most  unsatisfactory  morning  to  a  perfect  afternoon. 
Quickened  by  such  thoughts,  she  got  into  bed  without  waking 
May,  so  that  in  a  flutter  of  soft  kisses  she  could  sink  deliciously 
to  sleep,  enclosed  in  the  arms  of  her  lover  as  an  orchard  by 
sunlight. 

About  two  o'clock  Jenny  woke  up  to  another  psychic  experi- 
ence not  unusual  with  hypersensitive  temperaments.  The  ardor 
of  the  farewell  embrace  had  consumed  all  the  difficulties  of 
the  situation  discussed  on  the  journey  home.  This  ardor  of 
merely  sensuous  love  had  lasted  long  enough  to  carry  her  of?  to 
sleep  drowsed  by  a  passionate  content.  Meanwhile  her  brain, 
working  on  what  was  originally  the  more  vital  emotion,  brought 
her  back  to  consciousness  in  the  middle  of  the  problem's  state- 
ment. Lying  there  in  the  darkness,  Jenny  blushed  hotly,  so 
instant  was  the  mental  attitude  produced  by  Maurice's  demand. 
In  previous  encounters  over  this  subject,  her  protagonists  had 
all  been  so  manifestly  contemptible,  their  expectations  so  evi- 


The  Gift  of  Opals  197 

dent  from  the  beginning,  that  their  impudence  had  been  extin- 
guished by  the  fire  of  merely  social  indignation.  Jenny  had 
defeated  them  as  the  representative  of  her  sex  rather  than  her- 
self. She  had  never  comprehended  the  application  of  their  de- 
sires to  herself  as  a  feasible  proposition.  They  were  a  fact 
merely  objectively  unpleasant  like  monkeys  in  a  cage,  physically 
dangerous,  however,  with  certain  opportunities  Jenny's  worldly 
wisdom  would  never  afford.  In  the  case  of  Maurice  the  en- 
counter was  actual,  involving  a  clash  of  personalities:  the  course 
of  her  behavior  would  have  to  be  settled.  No  longer  fortified 
by  the  hostility  of  massed  opinion,  she  would  be  compelled  to 
entrust  her  decision  to  personal  resolution  and  individual  judg- 
ment. For  the  first  time  she  was  confronted  with  the  great 
paradox  that  simultaneously  restricts  and  extends  a  woman's 
life.  She  remembered  the  effect  of  Edie's  announcement  of 
surrender.  It  had  sickened  her  with  virginal  wrath  and  im- 
pressed her  with  a  sense  of  man's  malignity,  and  now  here  was 
she  at  the  cross-roads  of  experience  with  sign-posts  unmistak- 
able to  dominate  her  mental  vision. 

It  was  not  astonishing  that  Jenny  should  blush  with  the 
consciousness  of  herself  as  a  vital  entity;  for  the  situation  was 
merely  an  elaboration  of  the  commonplace  self-consciousness 
incident  to  so  small  an  action  as  entering  alone  a  crowded  room. 
Years  ago,  as  a  little  girl,  she  had  once  woken  up  with  an,' 
idea  she  no  longer  existed,  an  idea  dispelled  by  the  sight  of 
her  clothes  lying  as  usual  across  the  chair.  Now  she  was  fright- 
ened by  the  overwhelming  realization  of  herself:  she  existed  too 
actually.  This  analysis  of  her  mental  attitude  shows  that  Jenny 
did  not  possess  the  comfortable  mind  which  owes  volition  to 
external  forces.  Her  brain  registered  sensations  too  finely ;  her 
sense  of  contact  was  too  fastidious.  Acquiescence  was  never 
possible  without  the  agony  of  experience.  Her  ambition  to 
dance  was  in  childhood  a  force  which  was  killed  by  unimagi- 
native treatment.  Once  killed,  nothing  could  revive  it.  So  it 
would  be  with  her  love.  In  the  first  place,  she  was  aware 
of  the  imoortance  of  surrender  to  a  man.     She  did  not  regard 


198 


Carnival 


the  step  as  an  incident  of  opportunity.  All  her  impulses  urged 
her  to  give  way.  Every  passionate  fire  and  fever  of  love  Vf2& 
burning  her  soul  with  reckless  intentions.  On  the  other  hand, 
she  felt  that  if  she  yielded  herself  and  tasted  the  bitterness  of 
disillusionment,  she  would  be  forevermore  liable  to  acquiesce. 
She  would  demand  of  her  lover  attributes  which  he  might  not 
possess,  and  out  of  his  failure  by  the  completeness  of  her  per- 
sonality she  would  create  for  herself  a  tragedy. 

Finally  a  third  aspect  presented  itself  in  the  finality  of  the 
proposed  surrender.  She  was  now  for  the  first  time  enjoying 
life  with  a  fullness  of  appreciation  which  formerly  she  had 
never  imagined.  She  was  happy  in  a  sense  of  joy.  When  Cun- 
ningham was  playing  in  the  studio,  she  had  felt  how  insecure 
such  happiness  was,  how  impatient  of  any  design  to  imprison  it 
in  the  walls  of  time.  Indeed,  perhaps  she  had  seen  it  escaping 
on  the  echoes  of  a  melody.  Then  suddenly  over  all  this  con- 
fusion of  prudence,  debate,  hesitation,  breathless  abandonment 
and  scorching  blushes,  sleep  resumed  its  sway,  subduing  the  un- 
natural activity  of  a  normally  indolent  mind. 

She  lay  there  asleep  in  the  darkness  without  a  star  to  aid 
or  cross  her  destiny.  She  and  her  brooch  of  opals  were  swept 
out  into  the  surge  of  evolution ;  and  she  must  be  dependent 
on  a  fallible  man  to  achieve  her  place  in  the  infallible  scheme 
of  the  universe. 


chapter  XX:  Fete  Galante 

FOR  some  weeks  after  the  incident  of  the  opal,  there 
was  no  development  of  the  problem  of  behavior.  Mau- 
rice did  not  refer  to  the  subject,  and  Jenny  was  very 
glad  to  put  it  out  of  her  mind.  As  if  by  tacit  agreement,  they 
both  took  refuge  from  any  solution  in  a  gayety  that  might  have 
been  assumed,  so  sedulously  was  it  cultivated.  Everything  else 
was  set  aside  for  a  good  time,  and  though  there  were  interludes 
when  in  the  seclusion  of  an  afternoon  spent  together  they  would 
recapture  the  spirit  of  that  golden  and  benign  October,  these 
lovers  generally  seemed  anxious  to  share  with  their  friends  the 
responsibilities  of  enjoyment. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  a  polity  of  pleasure  was  established 
whose  citizens  were  linked  together  by  ties  of  laughter.  This 
city  state  of  Bohemia,  fortified  against  intrusion  by  experiences 
which  the  casual  visitor  was  not  privileged  to  share,  stood  for 
Jenny  as  the  solidest  influence  upon  her  life  so  far.  It  gave 
her  a  background  for  Maurice,  which  made  him  somehow  more 
real.  Without  this  little  society,  acknowledging  herself  and 
him  as  supreme  and  accepting  their  love  as  the  pivot  on  which 
its  own  existence  revolved,  she  would  have  seen  her  lover  as 
an  actuality  only  when  they  were  making  love.  Out  of  her 
sight,  he  would  have  faded  into  the  uncertain  mists  of  another 
social  grade,  floated  incorporeal  among  photographs  of  Ellis  and 
Walery  in  a  legend  of  wealth  and  dignity  beyond  her  concep- 
tion. To  Fuz  and  Ronnie  and  Cunningham  she  could  talk  of 
Maurice,  thereby  gleaning  external  impressions  which  confirmed 
her  own  attitude.    In  this  atmosphere  her  love  assumed  a  sanity 

199 


2  00  Carnival 

and    normality   that    might    otherwise   easily   have   been   lost. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  this  little  republic  was  content 
with  the  territory  of  422  Grosvenor  Road.  On  the  contrary, 
throughout  October,  November  and  December,  there  were 
frequent  sallies  against  convention  and  raids  upon  Philistia. 
There  were  noisy  tea-parties  in  hostle  strongholds  like  the  Cor- 
ner House,  where  ladies  were  not  permitted  to  smoke  and  cus- 
tomers were  kindly  requested  to  pay  at  the  desk.  Perhaps  their 
most  successful  foray  was  upon  a  fashionable  tea-shop  in  St. 
James's  Street,  where  a  florin  was  the  minimum  charge  for  tea 
to  include  everything;  on  this  occasion,  prepared  for  by  rigor- 
ous fasting,  it  included  a  very  great  deal.  There  were  attempts 
by  Ronnie  Walker  to  make  the  girls  enjoy  picture-galleries,  by 
Cunningham  to  convert  them  to  Symphony  Concerts.  And 
once  they  all  went  to  see  a  play  by  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw.  But 
painting,  music  and  the  drama  could  not  compete  with  skating 
rinks,  where  elegant  and  accomplished  instructors  complained 
of  their  rowdiness.  But,  as  Jenny  said,  "What  of  it?  We're 
enjoying  ourselves,  any  old  way." 

The  pinnacle  of  their  gay  ambition  was  a  Covent  Garden 
Ball.  This  entertainment  had  continually  to  be  postponed  for 
lack  of  funds;  for,  though  a  Covent  Garden  Ball  has  usually 
a  sober,  even  a  chilling  effect  upon  the  company,  it  has  dare- 
devil pretensions  which  Maurice  and  his  retinue  would  not  ex- 
ploit unless  they  were  assured  of  a  conspicuous  success. 

So  the  Second  Empire  Masquerade  was  planned  and  debated 
a  long  time  before  it  actually  happened.  That  it  happened  at 
all  was  due  to  the  death  of  Maurice's  great-aunt,  who  left  him 
one  hundred  pounds.  This  legacy  being  unexpected,  was  obvi- 
ously bound  to  be  spent  at  once.  As  the  legatee  pointed  out 
to  Jenny  one  dripping  afternoon  in  early  January,  as  they  sat 
together  in  the  studio: 

"It's  practically  like  finding  money  in  the  road.  I  know  that 
one  day  my  stockbroker  uncle  will  leave  me  two  thousand 
pounds.  He's  told  me  so  often  to  raise  my  spirits  on  wet  week- 
ends at  his  house.     I've  planned  what  to  do  with  that.    Every 


Fete  Galante  201 

farthing  Is  booked.  But  this  hundred  I  never  thought  of.  I 
was  beginning  to  despair  of  ever  raising  the  cash  for  Covent 
Garden,  and  here  it  is  all  of  a  sudden." 

"You're  not  going  to  spend  a  hundred  pounds  in  one  even- 
ing'" Jenny  exclaimed. 

"Not  all  of  it,  because  you've  got  to  buy  yourself  some  furs 
and  three  hats  and  those  silk  stockings  with  peach-colored  clocks 
— oh,  yes,  and  I've  got  to  buy  you  that  necklace  of  fire  opals 
which  we  saw  in  Wardour  Street  and  also  that  marquise  ring, 
and  I've  got  to  buy  myself  a  safety  razor  and  a  box  of  pastels, 
and  I  simply  must  get  Thackeray's  Lectures  on  the  English 
Humorists  for   Fuz." 

"There  won't  be  much  left  of  your  hundred  pounds,"  said 
Jenny, 

"Well,  let's  draw  up  an  estimate.  I'll  write  down  the  pos- 
sibles and  then  we'll  delete  nearly  all  of  them." 

Maurice  got  up  from  his  chair  and  wandered  round  the  room 
in  search  of  note-paper.  Not  being  able  to  find  any,  he  pinned 
a  large  sheet  of  drawing-paper  to  a  board  and  produced  a  pencil. 

"Look  at  him,"  laughed  Jenny.  "Look  at  the  Great  Mil- 
lionaire. Just  because  he's  come  into  money,  he  can't  write  on 
anything  smaller  than  a  blanket." 

"It's  not  ostentation,"  Maurice  declared.  "It's  laziness — a 
privilege  of  the  very  poor,  as  you  ought  to  know  by  this  time. 
I  can't  find  any  note-paper." 

"I  should  think  you  couldn't.  I  wonder  you  can  find  your- 
self in  this  room." 

"Come  along,"  urged  the  owner  of  it.  "We  must  begin. 
Maurice  and  Jenny.  Then  Fuz  and  Maudie,  Ronnie  and 
Irene,  Cunningham  and  Madge.  Any  more  you  can  think 
of?" 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  you've  taken  that  unnatural  piece 
of  paper  just  to  write  those  few  names  which  we  could  have 
thought  of  in  our  heads.     What  would  you  do  with  him?" 

"We  want  another  eight,"  Maurice  declared. 

"Oh,  no,  eight's  plenty." 


2  o  2  Carnival 

"Perhaps  it  is,"  he  agreed.  "Well,  now,  Maurice  will  be 
Theophile  Gautier — no,  he  won't — the  red  waistcoat  knocks 
him  out — Edmond  de  Goncourt?  No,  he  had  a  mustache. 
Chopin?  Long  hair.  Look  here,  I  don't  think  we'll  be  any- 
body in  particular.  We'll  just  be  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the 
period.  You  know  you  girls  have  got  to  wear  crinolines  and 
fichus  and  corkscrew  curls." 

"Like  we  used  to  wear  in  Boheme  in  the  Opera?" 

"That's  it.  You  must  see  about  your  dresses  at  once.  Good 
ones  will  cost  about  ten  pounds  to  hire,  and  that  ought  to  in- 
clude some  decent  paste." 

"We  sha'n't  have  to  pay  for  our  tickets." 

"Good.  Four  guineas  saved.  Dresses?  Say  twenty  pounds 
for  the  eight  of  us.  Supper  with  fizz  another  ten  quid.  Four 
salmon-colored  taxis  with  tips,  ten  pounds." 

"How  much?"  Jenny  exclaimed.  "Ten  pounds  just  to  take 
us  to  Covent  Garden  Ball  and  back?" 

"Ah,  but  I've  a  plan.  These  salmon-colored  taxis  are  going 
to  be  the  chef  d'oeuvre  as  well  as  the  hors  d'ceuvre  of  the  en- 
tertainment. Hush,  it's  a  secret.  Let  me  see,  our  tickets — 
four  guineas — forty-four  pounds  four  shillings.  Well,  say  fifty 
quid  to  include  all  tips  and  breakfast." 

"Well,  I  think  it's  too  much,"  Jenny  declared. 

"Not  too  much  for  an  evening  that  shall  be  famous  over  all 
evenings — an  evening  that  you,  my  Jenny,  will  remember  when 
you're  an  ancient  old  woman — an  evening  that  we'll  talk  over 
for  the  rest  of  our  lives." 

While  Maurice  was  speaking,  the  shadow  of  a  gigantic  doubt 
passed  over  Jenny's  mind.  She  endured  one  of  those  moments 
when  only  the  profound  uselessness  of  everything  has  any 
power  to  impress  the  reason.  She  suffered  a  complete  loss  of 
faith  and  hope.  The  moment  was  one  of  those  black  abysses 
before  which  the  mind  is  aghast  at  effort  and  conceives  annihi- 
lation. In  the  Middle  Ages  such  an  experience  would  have 
been  ascribed  to  the  direct  and  personal  influence  of 
Satan. 


Fete  Galante  203 


"What's  the  matter?"  Maurice  asked.  "You  loolc  as  if  you 
didn't  believe  me." 

But,  while  the  question  was  still  on  his  lips,  the  shadow 
passed,  and  Jenny  laughed. 

The  famous  evening  was  finally  assigned  to  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  January.  The  four  girls  took  their  places  in  the 
ballet  as  usual  and,  meeting  from  time  to  time  in  evolutions, 
would  murmur  as  they  danced  by,  "To-night,  what,  what?" 
or  "Don't  you  wish  it  was  eleven?"  They  would  look  at  each 
other,  too,  from  opposite  sides  of  the  stage,  smiling  in  the  sym- 
pathy of  anticipated  pleasure.  When  the  curtains  fell  they 
hurried  to  their  dressing-rooms  to  exchange  tights  and  spangles 
for  mid-Victorian  frocks,  whose  dainty  lace  made  all  the  other 
girls  very  envious  indeed.  Some  were  so  envious  as  to  suggest 
to  Jenny  that  another  color  would  have  suited  her  better  than 
pink  or  that  her  hair  would  be  more  becoming  en  chignon  than 
curled.  But  Jenny  was  not  deceived  by  such  professions  of 
amiable  advice. 

"Yes,  some  of  you  would  like  to  see  me  with  my  hair  done 
different.  Some  of  you  wouldn't  be  half  pleased  if  I  went  out 
looking  a  sight.  Oh,  no,  it's  only  a  rumor.  Thanks,  I'm  not 
taking  any.  I  know  what  suits  me  better  than  an>'one,  which 
pink  does." 

"Don't  take  any  notice  of  them,"  Maudie  whispered  to  her 
friend. 

"Take  notice  of  them.  What!  Why,  I  should  be  all  the 
time  looking.  My  eyes  would  get  as  big  as  moons.  They've 
been  opened  wide  enough  since  I  came  to  the  Orient,  as  it  is." 

At  last,  having  survived  every  criticism,  the  four  girls  were 
ready.  The  hall-porter's  boy  carried  their  luggage  out  to  the 
salmon-colored  taxis,  whose  drivers  looked  embarrassed  by  the 
salmon-colored  carnations  which  Maurice  insisted  they  should 
wear.  The  latter,  with  Fuz,  Ronnie  and  Cunningham,  stood 
in  the  entrance  of  the  court,  wrapped  in  full  cloaks  and  wear- 
ing tall  hats  of  a  bygone  fashion.  They  were  leaning  gracefully 
on  their  tasseled  canes  as  the  girls  came  along  the  court  towards 
14 


2  04  Carnival 

them.  It  was  romantic  to  think  that  other  girls  in  similar 
frocks  had  trod  the  same  path  and  met  men  dressed  like  them 
fifty  years  ago.  This  sweet  fancy  was  very  vividly  brought 
home  to  them  when  an  old  cleaner,  grimed  with  half  a  century 
of  Orient  dust,  passed  by  the  laughing,  chattering  group,  and, 
as  she  shuffled  off  towards  Seven  Dials,  looked  back  over  her 
shoulder  with  an  expression  of  fear. 

"Marie  thinks  we're  ghosts,"  laughed  Madge. 
"Isn't  it  dreadful  to  think  she  was  once  in  the  ballet?"  said 
Jenny.     "Poor  old  crow,  I  do  think  it's  dreadful." 
The  eight  of  them  shivered  at  the  thought. 
"Really?"  said  Maurice.     "How  horrible." 
The  episode  was  a  gaunt  intrusion  upon  gayety;  but  It  was 
soon  forgotten  in  the  noise  and  sheen  of  Piccadilly. 

The  taxis  with  much  hooting  hummed  through  the  dazzling 
thoroughfares  into  the  gloom  and  comparative  stillness  of  Long 
Acre.  As  usual  they  tried  to  cut  through  Floral  Street,  only 
to  be  turned  back  by  a  policeman ;  but  without  much  delay  they 
swept  at  last  under  the  great  portico  of  the  Opera  House. 
Here  many  girls,  blown  into  Covent  Garden  by  the  raw  Janu- 
ary winds,  gave  the  effect  of  thistledown,  so  filmy  were  their 
dresses;  and  the  rigid  young  men,  stopping  behind  to  pay  their 
fares,  looked  stiff  and  awkward  as  groups  of  Pre-Raphaelite 
courtiers.  Commissionaires  decorated  the  steps  without  utility. 
In  the  vestibule  merry  people  were  greeting  each  other  and 
nodding  as  they  passed  up  and  down  the  wide  staircase.  Here 
and  there  an  isolated  individual,  buttoning  and  unbuttoning  his 
gloves  with  unconscionable  industry,  gazed  anxiously  at  every 
swing  of  the  door.  Presently  Jenny  and  Madge  and  Maudie 
and  Irene  were  ready  and,  as  on  the  arms  of  their  escort  they 
took  the  floor  of  the  ballroom,  might  have  stepped  from  a  note- 
book of  Gavarni. 

Covent  Garden  balls  are  distinguished  by  the  atmosphere  of 
a  spectacle  which  pervades  them.  The  floor  itself  has  the 
character  of  an  arena  encircled  by  tiers  of  red  boxes,  many  of 
which  display  marionettes,  an  unobtrusive  audience,  given  over 


Fete  Galante  205 

to  fans  and  the  tinkle  of  distant  laughter;  while  the  curtained 
glooms  of  others  are  haunted  by  invisible  eyes.  Here  are  no 
chaperons  struggling  with  palms  and  hair-nets  through  a 
wearisome  evening,  creaking  in  wicker  chairs  and  discussing 
draughts  with  neighbors.  The  old  men,  searching  for  bridge- 
players,  are  absent.  There  is  neither  host  nor  hostess;  and 
not  one  anaemic  young  debutante  is  distressed  by  the  bleakness 
of  her  unembarrassed  programme. 

Maurice  announced  that  he  had  taken  a  box  for  the  evening, 
so  that  his  guests  would  be  able,  when  tired  of  dancing,  to  cheat 
fatigue.  Then  he  caught  Jenny  round  the  waist,  and,  regard- 
less of  their  companions,  the  two  of  them  were  lost  in  the  tide 
of  dancers.  They  were  only  vaguely  conscious  of  the  swirl  of 
petticoats  and  lisp  of  feet  around  their  course.  In  the  irresist- 
ible sweep  of  melodious  violins  all  that  really  existed  for  Mau- 
rice and  Jenny  was  nearness  to  each  other,  and  eyes  ablaze 
with  rapture;  and  for  him  there  was  the  silken  coolness  of  her 
curls,  for  her  the  fever  of  his  hand  upon  her  waist. 

During  the  interval  between  the  sixth  and  seventh  waltzes, 
Maurice,  breathless  at  the  memory  of  their  perfect  accord, 
said : 

"I  wonder  if  Paolo  and  Francesca  enjoy  swooning  together 
on  the  winds  of  hell.  Great  Scott!  as  if  one  wouldn't  prefer 
the  seventh  circle  to  bathing  in  pools  of  light  with  a  blessed 
damosel.     I'm  surprised  at  Rosetti." 

"Who's  she?" 

"The   blessed   damosel?" 

"No— Rose  Etty." 

"Oh,  Jenny,  don't  make  me  laugh." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about." 

"I  was  speculating.  Hark!  They're  playing  the  Eton  Boat- 
ing Song.    Come  along.    We  mustn't  miss  a  bar  of  it." 

In  the  scent  of  frangipani  and  jicky  and  phulnana  the 
familiar  tune  became  queerly  exotic.  The  melody,  charged 
with  regret  for  summer  elms  and  the  sounds  of  playing-fields, 
full  of  the  vanished  laughter  of  boyhood,  held  now  the  heart 


2o6  Carnival 

of  romantic  passion.  It  spoke  of  regret  for  the  present  rather 
than  the  past  and,  as  it  reveled  in  the  lapse  of  moments,  gave 
expression  to  the  dazzling  swiftness  of  such  a  night  in  a  com- 
plaint for  flying  glances,  sighs  and  happy  words  lost  in  their 
very  utterance. 

"Heart  of  hearts,"  whispered  Maurice  in  the  swirl  of  the 
dance. 

"Oh,  Maurice,  I  do  love  you,"  she  sighed. 

Now  the  moments  fled  faster  as  the  beat  quickened  for  the 
climax  of  the  dance.  Maurice  held  Jenny  closer  than  before, 
sweeping  her  on  through  a  mist  of  blurred  lights  in  which 
her  eyes  stood  out  clear  as  jewels  from  the  pallor  of  her  face. 
Round  the  room  they  went,  round  and  round,  faster  and  faster. 
Jenny  was  now  dead  white.  Her  lips  were  parted  slightly,  her 
fingers  strained  at  Maurice's  sleeve.  He,  wnth  flushed  cheeks, 
wore  elation  all  about  him.  No  dream  could  have  held  the 
multitude  of  imaginations  that  thronged  their  minds ;  and  when 
it  seemed  that  life  must  end  in  the  sharpness  of  an  ecstasy  that 
could  never  be  recorded  in  mortality,  the  music  stopped.  There 
was  a  sound  of  many  footsteps  leaving  the  ballroom.  Jenny 
leaned  on  Maurice's  arm. 

"You're  tired,"  he  said.     "Jolly  good  dance  that?" 

"Wasn't  it  glorious?    Oh,  Maurice,  it  was  lovely." 

"Come  and  sit  in  the  box  when  you've  had  some  champagne, 
and  I'll  dance  with  the  girls  while  you're  resting.     Shall  I?" 

She  nodded. 

Presently  Maurice  was  tearing  round  the  room  with  Maudie, 
both  of  them  laughing  very  loudly,  while  Jenny  sat  back  in  a 
faded  arm-chair  thinking  of  the  old  Covent  Garden  days  and 
nights,  and  wondering  how  she  could  ever  have  fancied  she 
was  happy  before  she  met  Maurice.  In  a  few  minutes  Fuz 
came  into  the  box  to  ask  if  she  wanted  to  dance. 

"No,  I'm  tired,"  she  told  him. 

"It's  just  as  well,  perhaps,"  he  said  gravely.  "For  I  am 
vA\2X  you  would  describe  as  a  very  unnatural  dancer." 

"Oh,   Fuz,"  she  laughed;  "are  you?     Oh,  you  must  dance 


Fete  Galante  207 


once  round  the  room  with  me  before  it's  over.  Oh,  you  must. 
It  tickles  my  fancy,  the  idea  of  Fuz  dancing." 

"At  last  I've  earned  a  genuine  laugh." 

"Oh,  Fuz,  doesn't  anyone  else  ever  laugh  at  you,  only  me?" 

"Very  rarely." 

"Shame!" 

"So  it  is." 

"Aren't  Maurice  and  Maudie  making  a  terrible  noise?" 

"They're  certainly  laughing  loud  enough,"  Fuz  agreed. 
"But  Maurice  is  always  in  spirits.  I  don't  think  he  knows  the 
meaning  of  depression." 

"Doesn't  he  then!"  Jenny  exclaimed.  "I  think  he  gets  very 
depressed  sometimes." 

"Not  deeply.     It's  never  more  than  a  passing  mood." 

"That's  quite  right.  It  is  a  mood.  But  he  works  himself 
up  into  a  state  over  his  moods." 

"Tell  me,  dear  Jane,"  said  Castleton  suddenly.  "No,  on 
second  thoughts,   I  won't  ask." 

"Oh,  do  tell  me." 

"No,  it's  not  my  business.  Besides,  you'd  be  annoyed,  and 
I've  no  wish  to  make  our  Jenny  angry." 

"I  won't  be  angry.  Do  tell  me,  Fuz,  what  you  was  going 
to  ask." 

"Well,  I  will,"  he  said,  after  a  pause.  "Jenny,  are  you  very 
fond  of  Maurice?" 

"Oh,  I  love  him." 

"Really  love  him?" 

"Of  course." 

"But  you'd  soon  get  over  it  if " 

"If  what?" 

"If  Maurice  was — was  a  disappointment — for  instance,  if  he 
married  somebody  else  quite  sudden!}  ?  Don't  look  so  fright- 
ened ;  he's  not  going  to,  as  far  as  I  know ;  or  likely  to,  but  if 
.    .    .    would  it  upset  your  life?" 

Jenny  burst  into  tears. 

"My  dearest  Jane,"  Castleton  cried,  "I  was  only  chaffing. 


2  o  8  Car?iival 

Please  don't  cry.  Jenny,  Jenny,  I'm  only  an  inquisitive,  specu- 
lative jackanapes.  Maurice  isn't  going  to  do  anything  of  the 
kind.  Renlly.  Besides,  I  thought— oh,  Jane— I'm  terribly 
ashamed  of  myself." 

"Maurice  said  I  shouldn't  like  you,"  Jenny  sobbed.  "And  I 
don't.  I  hate  you.  Don't  stay  with  me.  Go  out  of  the  box. 
I'm  going  home.  Where's  Maurice?  I  want  Maurice  to 
come  to  me." 

"He's  dancing,"  said  Castleton  helplessly.  "Jane,  I'm  an 
absolute  beast.  Jane,  will  you  marry  me  and  show  your  for- 
giving nature?" 

"Don't  go  on  teasing  me,"  sobbed  Jenny,  louder  than  ever. 
"You're  hateful.     I  hate  you." 

"No,  but  I  mean  it.  Will  you,  Jenny?  Really,  I'm  not 
joking.     I'd  marry  you  to-morrow." 

Jenny's  tears  gradually  turned  to  laughter,  and  at  last  she 
had  to  say: 

"Oh,  Fuz,  you're  hateful,  but  you  are  funny." 
"It's  a  most  extraordinary  thing,"  he  replied,  "that  the  only 
person  I  don't  want  to  laugh  at  me  must  do  it.    Jane!"     He 
held  out  his  hand.     "Jane,  are  we  pals  again?" 
"I  suppose  we've  got  to  be,"  Jenny  pouted. 
"Good  pals  and  jolly  companions?" 

"Oh,  whoever  was  it  said  that  to  me  once?"  cried  Jenny. 
"Years  and  years  ago.     Oh,  whoever  was  it?" 

"Years  and  years?"  echoed  Castleton,  quizzing.  "Who  are 
you,  ancient  woman?" 

"Don't  be  silly.  It  was.  Someone  said  it  when  I  was  a 
little  girl.  Oh,  Fuz,  I'd  go  raving  mad  to  remember  who  it 
was." 

"Well,  anyway,     I've    said    it    now.       And     Is    it   a   bar- 
gain?" 
"What?" 

"You  and  I  being  pals?" 
"Of  course." 
"Which  means  that  when  I'm  in  trouble,  I  go  to  Jane  for 


Fete  Gala7ite  209 


advfce,  and  when  Jane's  in  trouble,  she  comes  to  Fuz.  Shake 
hands  on  that." 

Jenny,  feeling  very  shy  of  him  for  the  first  time  during  their 
acquaintanceship,  let  him  take  her  hand. 

"And  the  tears  are  a  secret?"  he  asked. 

"Not  if  Maurice  asks  me.    I'd  have  to  tell  him." 

"Would  you?    AH  right,  if  he  asks,  tell  him." 

Maurice,  however,  did  not  ask,  being  full  of  arrangements 
for  supper  and  in  a  quandary  of  taste  between  Pol  Roger  and 
Perrier  Jouet. 

"What  about  Perrier  without  Jouet?"  Castleton  suggested. 
"It  would  save  money." 

Supper  (and  in  the  end  Maurice  chose  Pommery)  was  very 
jolly;  but  nothing  for  the  lovers  during  the  rest  of  the  evening 
reached  the  height  of  those  first  waltzes  together.  After  supper 
Fuz  and  Jenny  danced  a  cake-walk,  and  Ronnie  tried  to  hum 
a  favorite  tune  to  Cunningham  in  order  that  he  could  explain 
to  the  conductor  what  Ronnie  wanted.  Nothing  came  of  it, 
however,  as  the  latter  never  succeeded  in  disentangling  it  from 
two  other  tunes.  So,  with  laughter  and  dancing,  they  kept 
the  night  merry  to  the  last  echo  of  music,  and  when  at  about 
half-past  six  they  all  stood  in  the  vestibule  waiting  for  the 
salmon-colored  taxis  to  drive  them  home,  all  agreed  that  Mau- 
rice had    done   well. 

"And  I've  not  done  yet,"  he  said.  "I  suppose  you  all  think 
you're  going  home  to  tumble  sleepily  into  bed.  Oh,  no,  we're 
going  to  have  breakfast  first  at  the  old  Sloop,  Greenwich." 

"Greenwich?"   they   repeated   in  chorus. 

"I've  ordered  a  thumping  breakfast.  The  drive  will  do  us 
good.    We  can  see  the  dawn  break  over  the  river." 

"And  put  our  watches  right,"  added  Castleton. 

"Then  you  girls  can  be  driven  home  (your  bags  are  all  inside 
the  taxis)  and  sleep  all  the  rest  of  the  morning  and  afternoon." 

Maurice  was  so  eager  to  carry  this  addendum  that  none  of 
them  had  the  heart  to  vote  firmly  for  bed. 

"I    don't    mind   where   we   go,"   said    Ronnie.      "But   why 


2  I  o  Carnival 

Greenwich  in  particular?  We  can  see  the  dawn  break  over 
the  river  just  as  well  at  Westminster." 

"Greenwich  is  in  the  manner,"  Maurice  answered. 

"What  manner?" 

"The  crinoline  manner.  The  Sloop  is  absolutely  typically 
mid-Victorian  and  already  twice  as  romantic  as  your  crum- 
bling Gothic  or  overworked  Georgian." 

So  the  taxis  hummed  off  to  Greenwich  through  the  murk  of 
a  wet  and  windy  January  morning.  Wagons  were  being  un- 
loaded in  Covent  Garden  as  they  started ;  and  along  the  Strand 
workers  were  already  hurrying  through  the  rain.  It  was  still 
too  dark  to  see  the  river  as  they  spun  over  Waterloo  Bridge, 
but  the  air  blew  in  through  the  open  windows  very  freshly. 
In  the  New  Kent  Road  factory  girls,  shuffling  to  work,  turned 
to  shout  after  the  four  taxis ;  and  Madge  Wilson  leaned  out  to 
wave  to  her  mother's  shop  as  they  passed. 

All  the  way  Jenny  slept  in  Maurice's  arms,  and  he  from 
time  to  time  would  bend  over  and  kiss  very  lightly  the  sculp- 
tured mouth.  In  Deptford  High  Street  the  gray  dawn  was 
beginning  to  define  the  houses,  and  in  a  rift  of  the  heavy  clouds 
stars  were   paling. 

Jenny  woke  up  with  a  start. 

"Where  am  I?  Where  am  I?"  Then,  aware  of  Maurice, 
she  nestled  closer. 

"You've  been  asleep,  dearest.  We're  almost  at  Greenwich. 
It's  practically  morning  now." 

"I'm  cold." 

"Are  you,  my  sweet?  I  thought  this  fur  coat  would  keep 
you  warm.  It's  yours,  you  know.  I  bought  it  for  you  to-day 
— yesterday,  I  mean." 

"It's  lovely  and  warm,"  she  said,  "but  I'm  so  sleepy." 

"You  are  so  perfect  when  you're  lying  asleep,"  he  said;  "I 
must  make  a  statue  of  you.  I  shall  call  it  The  Tired  Dancer. 
I'll  begin  as  soon  as  possible  and  finish  it  this  spring." 

"I  wish  spring  would  come  quick,"  she  murmured.  "I'm 
sick  of  winter." 


Fete  Galante  211 

"So  am  I,"  he  agreed.  "And  we  shall  have  the  most  ex- 
quisite adventures  in  the  spring.  We'll  go  out  often  into  the 
country.    Long  country  walks  will  do  you  good." 

"Rather." 

"Hullo!"  cried  Maurice.  "Here  we  are  at  the  Sloop.  I 
hope  breakfast  is  ready." 

There  was,  however,  no  sign  of  life  in  the  hotel  by  the 
water's  side.     It  stared  at  them  without  any  welcome. 

"What  an  extraordinary  thing,"  said  Maurice.  "I'll  ring 
the  bell.  Great  Scott!  I  never  posted  the  letter  telling  them 
about  breakfast." 

"What  would  you  do  with  him?"  said  Madge. 

"Never  mind.  It's  absurd  to  keep  us  waiting  like  this.  We 
can  surely  get  breakfast."  He  pealed  the  bell  loudly  as  he 
spoke. 

"Can't  you  get  in,  sir?"  asked  one  of  the  drivers. 

"And  it's  coming  on  to  rain,"  said  Jenny. 

Maurice  pealed  the  bell  louder  than  ever;  and  finally  a 
sad-eyed  porter  in  shirt-sleeves  opened  the  door  and  surveyed 
the  party  over  a  broom. 

"We  want  breakfast,"  said  Maurice;  "breakfast  for 
eight." 

"Breakfast  always  is  at  eight,"  the  man  informed  them. 

"Breakfast  for  eight  people  and  as  quickly  as  possible." 

The  man  looked  doubtful. 

"Good  heavens!"  Maurice  cried  irritably.  "Surely  in  any 
decent  hotel  you  can  get  breakfast  for  eight." 

"What  are  you?"  the  man  asked.     "Theatricals?" 

"No,  no,  no,  we've  been  to  a  fancy  dress  ball — and  we  want 
breakfast." 

In  the  end  they  were  admitted,  and,  a  chamber-ma'd  having 
been  discovered  on  a  remote  landing,  the  girls  were  shown  into 
a  bedroom. 

"I  thought  this  hotel  professed  to  cater  for  excursions  of 
pleasure,"  said  Maurice  frigidly. 

"We  don't  get  many  of  'eiv.  here  in  winter." 


2  12  Carnival 

"I'm  not  surprised.  Good  Lord,  isn't  the  fire  lighted  in 
the  coffee-room?" 

"We  don't  use  the  coffee-room  much — except  for  political 
meetings.     Greenwich  has  gone  out  from  what  it  used  to  be." 

The  girls  came  in,  pale  and  tired,  and  the  party  foregathered 
round  the  coffee-room  grate,  from  which  a  wisp  of  smoke 
ascended  in  steady  promise. 

"Well,  Maurice,"  said  Castleton,  "I  think  very  little  of  this 
ravished  conservatory  into  which  your  historic  sense  has  led 
us.     How  do  you  like  Greenwich,  girls?" 

The  girls  all  sighed. 

"They  don't." 

"Hullo,  here's  a  waiter,"  said  Cunningham,  turning  round. 
"Good  morning,   waiter." 

"Good  morning,  sir." 

"Is  breakfast  going  to  be  long?" 

"It's  on  order  sir.    Eggs  and  bacon,  I  think  you  said." 

"I  should  think  somebody  probably  did.  In  fact,  I'd  almost 
bet  on  it,"  said  Castleton.     "What's  the  time,  waiter?" 

"I  don't  know,  sir,  but  I'll  find  out  for  you." 

"I  always  thought  Greenwich  was  famous  for  its  time." 

"Whitebait,  sir,  more  than  anything." 

Castleton  sighed;  and  Maurice,  who  had  gone  downstairs  to 
reassure  the  household,  came  back  trying  to  look  as  if  waiting 
for  breakfast  on  a  January  morning  after  dancing  all  night  was 
one  of  the  jolliest  experiences  attainable  by  humanity. 

"Maurice,"  said  Ronnie  Walker,  "we  think  your  night  was 
splendid.     But  we  think  your  morning  is  rotten." 

"Oh,  Maurice,  why  didn't  you  let  us  go  to  bed?"  Jenny 
grumbled. 

"You  can't  really  blame  the  hotel  people,"  Maurice  began. 

"We  don't,"  interrupted  Cunningham  severely.  "We  blame 
you." 

"I  also  blame  myself,"  said  Ronnie,  "for  giving  way  to  your 
mad  schemes." 

"You're  right,"  Jenny  put  in.     "I  think  we  was  all  mad. 


Fete  Galante  213 

What  must  they  have  thought  of  us — a  party  of  loonies,  I 
should  say." 

"I  meant  it  to  be  very  charming,"  Maurice  urged  in 
apology'. 

"Oh,  well,  it'll  all  come  out  in  the  vi^ash,  but  I  wish  they'd 
bring  in  this  unnatural  breakfast." 

The  company  sighed  in  unison,  and,  as  if  encouraged  by  such 
an  utterance  of  breath,  the  wisp  of  smoke  broke  into  a  thin 
blue  flame. 

"Come,  that's  better,"  said  Maurice,  unduly  encouraged. 
"The  fire's  burning  up  quite  cheerfully." 

This  and  the  entrance  of  breakfast  revived  everybody,  and 
when  a  genuine  blaze  crackled  in  the  grate  they  thought  Green- 
wich was  not  so  bad  after  all ;  though  Maurice  could  not  per- 
suade anybody  to  stand  by  the  bleak  windows  flecked  with 
raindrops  and  watch  the  big  ships  going  out  on  the  ebb. 

"But  what  shall  we  do?"  Jenny  demanded.  "I  can't  go 
home  after  the  milk.     I  shall  get  into  a  most  shocking  row." 

"You  can  explain  matters,"  Cunningham  suggested. 

"Yes,  I  should  say.  Who'd  believe  we  should  be  so  mad  as 
to  rush  ofif  to  Greenwich  on  a  pouring  morning  for  breakfast  ? 
No,  I  must  say  I  slept  with  Ireen." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  come  back  and  go  to  bed  at  my  place?" 
Irene  suggested.    "You  can  go  home  tea-time." 

"All  right.    I  will." 

Maudie  and  Madge  decided  to  copy  the  example  of  the  other 
two,  by  going  back  together  to  Mrs.  Wilson's  house  near  the 
Elephant  and  Castle. 

"Only  we  ought  to  change  our  clothes  first,"  Jenny  said. 
"What  of  it  though?     We've  got  cloaks." 

"I  shouldn't  mind  changing,"  said  Castleton.  "These  claret- 
colored  overalls  of  mine  will  inevitably  attract  the  public 
vision." 

"Rot!"  said  Maurice.  "We  can  all  drive  down  to  the  Ele- 
phant— although,  by  the  way,  we  ought  to  stop  at  the  Mar-' 
quis  of  Granby  and  look  at  the  Museum." 


2  14  Carnival 

"To  the  deuce  with  all  museums,"  cried  Ronnie.  "I  want 
my  bed." 

"You  are  an  unsporting  lot,"  Maurice  protested.  "Then 
we'll  stop  at  the  'Elephant,'  and  the  girls  can  go  home  in  two 
taxis  and  we'll  go  back  in  the  others." 

So  it  was  arranged ;  and,  having  paid  the  bill  and  politely 
assented  to  the  waiter's  suggestion  that  they  should  come  over 
in  the  summer-time  to  a  whitebait  dinner,  they  left  behind 
them  the  Sloop  Hotel,  Greenwich. 

On  the  way  back  to  London,  Maurice  attempted  to  point 
out  to  Jenny  the  foolishness  of  her  present  style  of 
living. 

"All  this  fuss  about  whether  you  go  home  before  or  after 
the  milk.  I  can't  understand  why  you  let  yourself  be  a  slave 
to  a  family.     I  really  can't." 

"But  I'm  not,"  said  Jenny  indignantly.  "Only  that  doesn't 
say  I'm  going  to  live  with  you,  if  that's  what  you  mean." 

Somehow  the  wet  and  dreary  morning  gave  a  certain  crudity 
of  outline  to  the  situation,  destroying  romantic  enchantments 
and  accentuating  the  plain  and  ugly  facts. 

"You'd  be  ever  so  much  happier  if  you  did." 

"Oh,  well,  who  cares?" 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  say  that." 

"Well,  what  an  unnatural  time  to  talk  about  where  I'm 
going  to  live  and  what  I'm  going  to  do." 

"It's  extraordinary,"  said  Maurice,"  how  much  you're  in- 
fluenced by  the  unimportant  little  things  of  life.  I'm  as  much 
in  love  with  you  now  as  I  was  last  night  when  we  were  waltz- 
ing.   You're  not." 

"I  don't  love  anything  now  except  bed." 

"Yet  I'm  just  as  tired  as  you  are." 

"Who  cares?" 

"Damn  it.  Don't  go  on  saying  that.  I  can't  think  wheie 
you  got  hold  of  that  infernal  expression." 

"You  are  in  a  nasty  mood,"  said  Jenny  sullenly. 

"So  are  you." 


Fete  Galante  2  1 5 

"Well,  why  did  jou  drag  me  out  all  this  way  in  the  early 
morning?" 

"I  wanted  you  to  enjoy  yourself.  I  wanted  to  round  off  a 
glorious  evening." 

"I  think  a  jolly  good  sleep  rounds  off  a  glorious  evening,  or 
anything  else,  best  of  all." 

"I  think  you  sleep  too  much,"  argued  Maurice,  who  was 
so  tired  himself  that  he  felt  bound  to  contest  futilely  every  point 
of  the  discussion. 

"Well,  I  don't.     That's  where  you  and  me  don't  agree." 

"You're  always  sleeping." 

"Well,  if  I  like  it,  it  needn't  trouble  jou." 

"Nothing  troubles  me,"  Maurice  answered  with  much  aus- 
terity. "Only  I  wish  to  goodness  you'd  behave  reasonably. 
Look  here,  you're  an  artistic  person.  You  earn  your  living 
by  dancing.  You  don't  want  to  take  up  with  a  lot  of  old 
women's  notions  of  morality.  If  you  reject  an  experience,  you'll 
suffer  for  it.     Chance  only  offers  you  Life — I  mean  Life  only 

offers  you  Chance "     But  it  did  not  matter  much  what  he 

jneant,  for  by  now  Jenny  was  fast  asleep. 


chapter  XXI:  Epilogue 


JENNY  went  to  bed  at  Irene's  house  in  Camden  Town  and 
slept  soundly  till  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.     Then 
she  got  up,  dressed  herself,  and  prepared  to  face  the 
storms  of  17  Hagworth  Street. 

When  she  walked  into  the  kitchen,  the  family  was  assembled 
in  conclave  round  the  tea-table.  The  addition  of  her  brother  to 
the  usual  party  of  three  made  her  exclaim  in  surprise  from 
the  doorway: 

"Oo— er,  there's  Alfie." 

"So  you've  come  back?"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn. 
"Yes,  I  went  to  Covent  Garden  Ball." 
"I  wonder  you  dare  show  your  face." 
"Why  not?"  asked  Jenny,  advancing  towards  the  table. 
"Oht  leave  her  alone,  mother,"  said  May.     "She's  tired." 
"You  dare  tell  me  what  I'm  to  do,"  Mrs.  Raeburn  threat- 
ened, turning  sharply  to  her  youngest  daughter. 

Jenny  began  to  unbutton  her  gloves,  loftily  unconscious  of 
her  mother's  gaze,  which  was  now  again  directed  upon  her. 
"How's  yourself,  young  Alf?"  she  lightly  inquired. 
"Better   than    you,   I  hope,"   came  the   morose   reply  muf- 
fled by  a  teacup. 

"Perhaps  you'd  like  us  to  help  you  off  with  your  things?" 
Mrs.  Raeburn  suggested  sarcastically. 

"Eh?"  Jenny  retorted,  pointing  a  cold  insolence  of  manner 
with  arched  contemptuous  eyebrows. 

"Don't  you  try  and  defy  me,  miss,"  Mrs.  Raeburn  warned 
her.     "Because  you  know  I  won't  have  it." 

216 


Epilogue  217 


"Who  cares?     I  haven't  done  nothing." 

Alfie  guffawed  ironically. 

"I  wonder  you  aren't  afraid  to  make  a  noise  like  that  with 
such  long  ears  as  you've  got,"  said  Jenny.  "I  should 
be." 

Alfie  muttered  something  about  sauce  under  his  breath,  but 
ventured  no  audible  retort. 

"Well,  what's  the  matter?"  Jenny  asked.  "Get  it  over  and 
done  with." 

"Where  were  you  last  night?" 

"I  told  you.    At  Covent  Garden  Ball." 

"And  afterwards?" 

"I  went  home  with  Ireen." 

"And  that's  a lie,"  shouted  Alfie.     "Because  I  saw  you 

go  off  with  a  fellah." 

"What  of  it,  Mr.  Nosy  Parker?  And  don't  use  your  navvy's 
language  to  me,  because  I  don't  like  it." 

"That's  quite  right,"  May  agreed.  "He  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  himself." 

"You  shut  up,  you  silly  kid,"  Alfie  commanded. 

Here  Charlie  entered  the  dispute. 

"There's  no  call  to  swear,  Alf.  I  can  argue  without  swear- 
ing and  so  can  you." 

"It  was  you  that  learned  him  to  swear.  He's  heard  you 
often  enough,"  Mrs.  Raeburn  pointed  out.  "But  that's  no 
reason   why  Alfie  should." 

Jenny,  more  insolently  contemptuous  than  ever,  interrupted 
the  side-issue. 

"When  you've  finished  arguing  which  is  the  biggest  lady 
and  gentleman  in  this  room,  perhaps  you'll  let  me  finish  what 
I  was  going  to  say." 

"I'd  hold  my  tongue  if  I  was  you,"  her  brother  advised. 
"You're  as  bad  as  Edie." 

"Don't  you  talk  to  me.  You!"  said  Jenny,  stamping  with 
rage.  Then,  with  head  thrown  back  and  defiant  underlip,  she 
continued : 


2  I  8  Carnival 

"That's  quite  right  about  my  driving  off  with  a  gentleman." 
In  the  tail  of  the  "g"  was  whipcord  for  Alfie's  self-esteem. 

"Gentleman,"  he  sneered. 

"Which  is  more  than  you  could  ever  be,  any  old  way." 

"Or  want  to,"  Alfie  growled.  "Thanks,  I'm  quite  content 
with  w^hat  I  am." 

"You  can't  have  many  looking-glasses  dow^n  at  your  work- 
shop then.  Look  at  Mr.  Quite  Content.  How  much  do  they 
pay  you  a  week  to  be  all  the  time  spying  after  your  sister?" 

"Well,  anyway,  I  caught  you  out,  my  girl." 

"No,  you  didn't.  I  say  I  did  drive  off  with  a  gentleman, 
but  there  w^-is  a  crowd  of  us.  We  went  to  have  breakfast  at 
Greenwich." 

"Now  that's  a  place  I've  often  meant  to  go  to  and  never 
did,"  said  Charlie.     "What's  it  like?" 

"You  keep  quiet,  you  silly  old  man,"  his  wife  commanded. 
"As  if  she  went  near  Greenwich.    What  a  tale!" 

"It  isn't  a  tale,"  Jenny  declared.  "I  did.  Ask  Maudie 
Chapman  and  Madge  Wilson  and  Ireen.    They  was  all  there." 

"Oh,  I  don't  doubt  they're  just  as  quick  with  their  tongues 
as  what  you  are,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn.  "A  nice  lot  you  meet 
at  that  theater," 

"Jest  leave  the  theater  alone,"  her  daughter  answered.  "It's 
better  than  this  dog's  island  where  no  one  can't  let  you  alone 
for  a  minute  because  they're  so  ignorant  that  they  don't  know 
nothing.     I  say  I  did  go  to  Greenwich." 

"I  don't  see  why  the  girl  shouldn't  have  gone  to  Green- 
wich," Charlie  interposed.  "I  keep  telling  you  I've  often 
thought  of  going  there  myself." 

"Jenny  never  speaks  only  what's  the  truth,"  May  asserted. 

"Yes,  and  a  lot  of  good  it  does  me,"  said  Jenny  indignantly. 
"I'd  better  by  half  tell  a  pack  of  lies,  the  same  as  other  girls 
do." 

"What  she  wants,"  said  Alfie  sententiously,  "is  a  jolly  good 
hiding.  Look  at  her.  There's  a  fine  sister  for  a  chap  to  have 
— nothing  but  paint  and  powder  and  hair-dye." 


Epilogue  219 

Jenny  stood  silent  under  this;  but  the  upper  lip  was  no 
longer  visible.  Her  cheeks  were  pale,  her  eyes  mere  points  of 
light.    May  was  the  first  to  speak  in  defense  of  the  silent  one. 

"Brothers!"  she  scoffed.  "Some  girls  would  be  a  sight  bet- 
ter without  brothers.     Hateful  things!" 

Jenny's  feelings  had  been  so  overwrought  by  the  fatigue  of 
the  dance  followed  b}-  this  domestic  scene  that  May's  gallant 
sally  should  have  turned  contempt  to  tears.  But  Alfie  had 
enraged  her  too  profoundly  for  weeping,  and  though  tear-drops 
stood  in  her  eyes,  they  were  hard  as  diamonds. 

"You  oughtn't  to  talk  to  her  like  that,  my  boy,"  Charlie 
protested.  "You're  talking  like  a  clergyman  I  once  did  some 
work  for.  He  said,  'I'm  not  satisfied  with  this  here  box,  Mr. 
Raeburn' — well,  he  said  more  than  that — and  I  said,  'I'm  not 
satisfied  with  your  tone  of  voice,'  and " 

"For  goodness'  sake,  Charlie,  keep  your  tongue  quiet,"  his 
wife  begged.  "Look  here,  Jenny,"  she  went  on,  "I  won't  have 
these  hours  kept,  and  that's  all  about  it.  Wherever  you  were 
last  night,  you  weren't  at  home  where  you  ought  to  be,  and 
where  you  shall  be  as  long  as  you  live  with  me.  Now  that's 
all  about  it,  and  don't  give  me  any  back  answers,  because  I 
know  what's  right  and  I'm  your  mother." 

"I  think  you're  a  bit  hard  on  the  girl,  Florrie,  I  do  really," 
said  the  father.  "She  takes  after  her  dad.  I  was  always  one 
for  seeing  a  bit  of  life.  What  I  says  is,  'Let  the  young  enjoy 
themselves.'  " 

"What  you  say  is  neither  here  nor  there,"  replied  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn. "You  never  did  have  any  sense,  you  haven't  got  any 
sense  now,  and  you  never  will  have  any  sense." 

"When  you've  done  nagging  at  one  another,  all  of  you,  I'm 
off,"  said  Jenny  deliberately. 

"Off?"  Mrs.  Raeburn  echoed. 

"I'm  going  to  live  at  Ireen  Dale's  for  the  future.  This!" 
She  looked  round  the  kitchen.     "Pooh!" 

"You're  not  going  to  leave  home?"  Mrs.  Raeburn  asked. 

"Aren't  I?  Who  says  so?  I'm  going  nov,-.  You!"  she 
15 


2  2  o  Carnival 

said  bitterly  to  her  brother.  "You've  done  a  lot,  Mr.  Interfer- 
ing Idiot.  It's  time  you  looked  about  for  some  girl  to  marry 
you,  so  as  you  can  poke  your  nose  into  her  business.  Good-bye, 
all.  I'll  come  over  to  tea  soon,  that  is  if  you  aren't  all  ashamed 
to  have  tea  vi^ith  me." 

As  she  turned  abruptly  to  go,  Alfie  asked  his  mother  why 
she  didn't  lock  her  in  a  bedroom. 

"It  wouldn't  be  any  good,"  said  the  latter. 

"No,  it  wouldn't,"  Jenny  vowed.  "I'd  kill  myself  sooner 
than  sleep  here  another  night." 

"You're  a  dreadful  worry  to  me,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn  slowly 
and  earnestly. 

"Send  on  my  things  to  43  Stacpole  Terrace,  Camden 
Town,"  replied  the  daughter.  "You  needn't  think  you'll  get 
me  back  by  keeping  them,  because  you  won't." 

"You'll  come  and  see  us?"  asked  Mrs.  Raeburn,  who  seemed 
now  to  accept  defeat  meekly. 

"Yes,  as  long  as  you  keep  Mr.  Nosy  Parker  Puppydog  out- 
side. Brother!  Why  if  you  only  knew,  he  wears  that  jam-pot 
round  his  neck  to  hide  where  his  head's  come  off." 

Presently  the  front  door  slammed. 


chapter  XXII:   The  Unfinished  Statue 

MAURICE,  on  being  informed  of  the  decisive  step 
which  Jenny  had  taken,  asked  her  why  she  had  not 
taken  the  more  decisive  step  of  avowing  his  pro- 
tection. 

"Because  x  don't  want  to.  Not  yet.  I  can't  explain  why. 
But  I  don't.     Oh,  Maurice,  don't  go  on  asking  me  any  more." 

"It's  nothing  to  do  with  your  people.  Because  you  evidently 
don't  mind  hurting  their  feelings  in  another  way." 

"Going  to  live  at  Ireen's  isn't  the  same  as  living  with  you." 

"You  needn't  live  with  me  openly.  Nobody  wants  you  to 
do  that.     Only " 

"It's  not  a  bit  of  good  your  going  on,"  she  interrupted.  "I've 
told  you  I  will  one  day." 

"One  day,"  he  sighed. 

It  was  a  fine  February  that  year,  coming  in  with  a  stir  of 
spring.  Maurice  felt  in  accord  with  the  season's  impulse,  and 
became  possessed  with  the  ambition  to  create  a  work  of  art. 
He  suggested  that  Jenny  should  come  daily  to  the  studio  and  sit 
for  his  statue  of  The  Tired  Dancer. 

"I'm  sure  my  real  vocation  is  plastic,"  he  declared.  "I  can 
write  and  I  can  play,  but  neither  better  than  a  lot  of  other 
people.  With  sculpture  it's  dififerent.  To  begin  with,  there 
isn't  such  competition.  It's  the  least  general  of  the  arts, 
although  in  another  sense  it's  the  most  universal.  Again,  it's 
an  art  that  we  seem  to  have  lost.  Yet  by  every  rule  of  social 
history,  it  is  the  art  with  which  the  present  stage  of  evolution 
should  be  most  occupied.      In   this  era  of  noise  and  tear  the 

221 


2  2  2  Carnival 

splendid  quiescence  of  great  sculpture  should  provoke  every 
creative  mind.  I  have  the  plastic  impulse,  but  so  far  I've  been 
content  to  fritter  it  away  in  bits  and  pieces  of  heads  and  arms 
and  hands.     I  must  finish  something;  make  something." 

Jenny  was  content  to  sit  watching  him  through  blue  wreaths 
of  cigarette  smoke.  She  found  a  sensuous  delight  in  seeing  him 
happy  and  hearing  the  flow  of  his  excited  talk. 

"Now  I  must  mold  you,  Jenny,"  he  went  on,  pacing  up  and 
down  in  the  midst  of  the  retinue  of  resolutions  and  intentions. 
"By  gad!  I'm  thrilled  by  the  thought  of  it.  To  possess  you 
in  virgin  wax,  to  mold  your  delicious  shape  with  my  own  hands, 
to  see  you  taking  form  at  my  compelling  touch.  By  gad !  I'm 
thrilled  by  it.  What's  a  lyric  after  that?  I  could  pour  my 
heart  out  in  every  meter  imaginable,  but  I  should  never  give 
anything  more  than  myself  to  the  world.  But  if  I  make  a 
glorious  statue  of  you,  I  give  you — you  forever  and  ever  for 
:nen  to  gaze  at  and  love  and  desire.  By  gad!  I'm  thrilled 
by  the  thought  of  it.  There's  objective  art.  Ha!  Poor  old 
poets  with  their  words.  Where  are  they?  You  can't  dig  your 
nails  into  a  word.  By  Jove,  the  Nereids  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum.    You  remember  those  Nereids,  darling?" 

Jenny  looked  blank. 

"Yes,  you  do.  You  said  how  much  you  liked  them.  You 
must  remember  them,  so  light  and  airy  that  they  seem  more 
like  clouds  or  blowballs  than  solid  marble." 

"I  think  all  the  statues  we  saw  was  very  light  and  airy,  if 
it  comes  to  that,"  said  Jenny. 

Maurice  gave  up  pacing  round  the  room  and  flung  himself 
into  a  chair  to  discuss  details  of  the  conception. 

"Of  course,  I'd  like  you  to  be  dressed  as  a  Columbine:  and 
yet,  I  don't  know,  it's  rather  obvious." 

"I  could  wear  my  practice  dress." 

"What's  that  like?" 

"I've  got  two  or  three.  Only  the  nicest  is  my  gray  tar- 
lington." 

"Eh?" 


The  Unfinished  Statue  223 

"You  know,  very  frilly  musling.  Just  like  a  ballet  skirt, 
only  you  needn't  wear  tights." 

"I  didn't  hear  what  you  said.  I  know,  tarlatan.  Nice  frizzy 
stuff.    That  sounds  good.    And  it  won't  matter  crumpling  it?" 

"Of  course  not." 

"Because  you  see  I  want  you  to  be  lying  on  a  pile  of  rugs 
and  cushions  just  as  if  you'd  been  dancing  hard  and  had  fallen 
asleep  where  you  sank  down." 

So,  in  the  time  of  celandines  and  snowdrops,  Jenny  would 
come  to  the  studio  every  day;  and  when  they  had  lunched  to- 
gether intimately  and  delightfully,  she  would  go  downstairs  to 
change  her  frock,  while  Maurice  arranged  her  resting-place. 

The  dove-gray  tarlatan  skirt,  resilient  like  the  hair-spring  of 
a  watch,  suited  the  poise  of  Jenny's  figure.  She  wore  gray 
silk  stockings  clocked  with  vivid  pink,  a  crepe  de  Chine  blouse 
the  color  of  mist,  and  round  her  head  a  fillet  of  rosy  velvet. 
Altogether,  she  looked  an  Ariel  woven  magically  from  the 
smoke  of  London.  Once  or  twice  she  actually  fell  fast  asleep 
among  the  rugs;  but  generally  she  lay  in  a  dream,  just  con- 
scious of  the  flow  of  Maurice's  comments  and  rhapsodies. 

"It's  an  extraordinary  thing,"  he  began  on  one  occasion. 
"But  as  I  sit  here  fashioning  your  body  out  of  wax,  you  your- 
self become  every  moment  more  and  more  of  a  spirit.  I've  a 
queer  fancy  working  in  my  brain  all  the  time  that  this  is  really 
you,  here  under  my  hands.  I  suppose  it's  the  perpetual  concen- 
tration on  one  object  that  puts  everything  else  out  of  propor- 
tion. One  thing,  however,  I  do  realize:  you're  making  your- 
self every  day  more  necessary  to  my  life.  Honestly,  when 
you're  not  here,  this  studio  is  infernal.  You  seem  to  endow  it 
with  your  presence,  to  infuse  it  with  your  personality.  It's  so 
romantic,  you  and  I  all  alone  on  the  tops  of  the  houses,  more 
alone  than  if  we  were  on  a  beach  in  winter.  I  wish  I  could 
tell  you  the  glorious  satisfaction  I  feel  all  the  time." 

"Darling,"  she  murmured  drowsily. 

"Sleepy  girl,  are  you?" 

"A  bit." 


2  2  4  Carnival 

Just  then  came  a  knock  at  the  door,  and  Ronnie  Walker 
looked  in. 

"Hullo,  Ronnie,"  said  Maurice,  with  a  hint  of  ungracious- 
ness in  his  tone. 

"I  say,  old  chap,  would  you  think  me  an  intrusive  scoundrel 
if  I  made  some  drawings  of  Jenny?" 

Maurice's  annoyance  at  interruption  was  mollified  by  the 
pride  of  ownership. 

"Rather  not.    Any  time.    Why  not  now?" 

So  Ronnie  sat  there,  making  little  croquis  of  Jenny  with  soft 
outlines  elusive  as  herself.  After  a  while,  with  his  sketch-book 
under  his  arm,  he  stole  quietly  from  the  room.  The  next  day 
he  came  back  with  two  water-colors,  of  which  the  first  showed  a 
room  shadowy  with  dawn  and  Jenny  fast  asleep  before  a  silver 
mirror,  wrapped  in  a  cloak  of  clouded  blue  satin.  The  second 
represented  a  bedroom  darkened  by  jalousies  faintly  luminous 
with  the  morning  light,  when  through  one  chink,  glittering 
with  motes,  a  narrow  sunbeam  made  vivid  her  crimson  lips. 

The  painter  showed  his  pictures  to  Maurice. 

"Oh,  Ronnie,"  said  the  latter.  "You  put  me  out  of  temper 
with  my  own  work." 

"My  dear  chap,  I'm  awfully  sorry,"  apologized  Ronnie,  and, 
without  waiting,  hurried  from  the  studio. 

"Whatever's  the  matter?"  asked  Jenny,  awakened  by  this 
brief  intervie,>v. 

"I  wish  people  wouldn't  come  in  and  interrupt  me  when  I'm 
at  work,"  Maurice  grumbled.  "It's  frightfully  inconsiderate. 
You  don't  want  to  look  at  damned  paintings  when  you're  work- 
ing in  another  medium." 

"Who  were  they  of?" 

"You,  of  course." 

"Why  didn't  he  show  them  to  me?" 

"Because  I  jumped  down  his  throat,  I  suppose." 

"Whatever  for?" 

"Can't  you  understand  how  annoying  it  must  be  to  have  to 
look  at  another  person's  treatment  of  your  subject?" 


The  Unji?iishea  Statue  225 

"I  think  it  was  very  nasty  of  you  not  to  let  him  show  me  the 
pictures." 

"You  seem  more  interested  in  Ronnie's  work  than  in  mine." 

"Well,  you  never  let  me  look  at  what  you've  done." 

"It  isn't  finished  yet." 

"You  can  be  horrid." 

"Look  here,  Jenny,  for  goodness'  sake  don't  start  criticising 
me.  I  can't  stand  it.  I  never  could.  I've  noticed  lately  you've 
taken  to  it." 

"Oh,  I've  not." 

"Well,   you  give  me  that  impression." 

Jenny  rose  from  the  cushions  and,  running  her  hands  down 
the  tarlatan  till  it  regained  its  buoyancy,  she  moved  slowl}- 
across  to  Maurice's  side. 

"Kiss  me,  you  silly  old  thing,  and  don't  say  any  more  un- 
kind things,  because  they  make  me  unhappy." 

Maurice  could  not  be  disdainful  of  her  as,  leaning  over 
him,  she  clasped  cool  hands  beneath  his  chin  and  with  tender 
kisses  uprooted  from  his  forehead  a  maze  of  petulant  lines. 

"You  little  enchanting  thing,"  he  murmured.  "You  disarm 
me  with  your  witcheries." 

"And  he's  not  going  to  be  cross  any  more?" 

"He  can't  be.     Alas,  my  sweet  one  is  too  sweet." 

"If  you  only  knew  what  it  meant  for  Jenny  Pearl  to  be  the 
soppy  one." 

"That's  love,"  Maurice  explained. 

"Is  it?     I  suppose  it  is." 

The  sunshine  of  February  was  extinguished  by  a  drench  of 
rain.  March  came  in  with  storms  of  sleet  followed  by  a  long 
stretch  of  dry  easterly  gales,  when  the  studio,  full  of  firelight 
and  daffodils,  was  a  pleasant  refuge  from  the  gray  winds. 
After  Ronnie's  visit  the  statue  had  been  put  aside  for  a  while; 
the  lovers  spent  most  of  their  time  in  hearth-rug  conversa- 
tions, when  Jenny  would  prattle  inconsequently  of  youthful 
days  and  Maurice  would  build  up  a  wonderful  future.  Vexa- 
tious riddles  of  conduct  were  ignored  like  the  acrostics  of  old 


2  2  6  Carnival 

newspapers,  and  Jenny  was  happier  than  she  had  ever  been. 
Her  nature  had  always  demanded  a  great  deal  from  the  pres- 
ent. Occurrences  the  most  trivial  impressed  themselves  deeply 
upon  her  mind,  and  it  was  this  zest  for  the  ephemeral  which 
made  her  recollections  of  the  past  so  lively.  As  a  natural  corol- 
lary to  this  habit  of  mind,  she  was  profoundly  deficient  in  spec- 
ulation or  foresight.  The  future  exhausted  her  imagination  at 
once:  her  intellect  gr.sped  long  before  she  reached  the  prospect 
of  eternity.    A  month  made  her  brain  reel. 

Having  succeeded  in  postponing  all  discussion  of  their  nat- 
ural attitude,  Jenny  set  out  to  enjoy  the  present  which  en- 
dowed her  with  Maurice's  company,  with  fragrant  intimacies, 
and  long,  contented  hours.  He  himself  was  most  charming 
when  responsibilities,  whether  of  art  or  life,  were  laid  aside. 
Jenny,  a  butterfly  herself,  wanted  nothing  better  than  to  play 
in  the  air  with  another  butterfly. 

Then  Maurice  suddenly  woke  up  to  the  fact  that,  summer 
being  imminent,  no  more  time  must  be  wasted.  Work  on 
the  statue  was  resumed  in  a  fever  of  industry.  April  came  in 
more  like  a  beldame  than  a  maid.  In  the  studio,  now  full  of 
rose-pink  tulips,  the  statue  rapidly  progressed.  One  morning 
April  threw  off  her  disguises  and  danced  like  a  fairy. 

"I  shall  finish  the  model  to-day,"  Maurice  announced. 

The  sun  went  in  and  out  all  the  afternon.  Now  the  win- 
dows were  a-wash  with  showers;  in  a  moment  they  were 
sparkling  in  a  radiancy. 

"Finished,"  the  artist  cried,  and  dragged  Jenny  to  look  and 
admire. 

"Jolly  fine,"  she  declared.  "Only  it  isn't  very  like  me. 
Never  mind,  position  in  life's  everything,"  she  added,  as  she 
contemplated  her  sleeping  form. 

"Not  like  you,"  said  Maurice  slowly.  "You're  right.  It's 
not.  Not  a  bit!  Damn  art!"  he  cried,  and,  picking  up  the 
wax  model,  flung  it  with  a  crash  into  the  fire-place. 

Jenny  looked  at  Maurice,  perplexity  and  compassion  striving 
in  her  countenance  with  disapproval ;  then  she  knelt  to  rescue  a 


The  Unji?iished  Statue  227 

curved  arm,  letting  it  fall  back  listlessly  ainong  other  fragments. 
"You  are  mad.    Whatever  did  you  want  to  do  that  for?" 

"You're  right.  It's  not  you.  Oh,  why  did  I  ever  try? 
Ronnie  could  do  it  with  a  box  of  damned  paints.  Why 
couldn't  I?  I  know  you  better  than  Ronnie  does.  I  love 
you.  I  adore  every  muscle  and  vein  in  your  body.  I  dream 
day  and  night  of  the  line  of  your  nose.  Why  couldn't  I  have 
given  that  in  stone,  when  Ronnie  could  show  the  world  your 
mouth  with  two  dabs  of  carmine?  What  a  box  of  trickery 
life  is.  Here  am  I  burning  with  ambition  to  create  a  master- 
piece. I  fall  in  love  with  a  masterpiece.  I  have  every  oppor- 
tunity, a  flaming  inspiration,  and  nothing  comes  of  it.  Noth- 
ing. Absolutely  nothing.  But,  by  Jove,  something  must.  Do 
you  hear,  Jenny?  I  won't  be  put  ofiE  any  longer.  If  I  can't 
possess  your  counterpart,   I  must  possess  you." 

During  this  speech  a  storm  of  hail  was  drumming  on  the 
windows;  but  while  Maurice  strained  her  to  his  heart  in  a 
long  silence,  the  storm  passed,  and  the  sun  streamed  into  the 
warm,  quiet  room.  On  the  window-sill  a  solitary  sparrow 
cheeped  at  regular  intervals,  and  down  in  the  street  children 
were  bowling  iron  hoops  that  fell  very  often. 

"Jenny,  Jenny,"  pleaded  Maurice,  relaxing  the  closeness  of 
his  embrace.  "Don't  play  at  love  any  more.  Think  what  a 
mistake,  what  a  wicked  mistake  it  is  to  let  so  much  of  our 
time  go  by.  Don't  drive  me  mad  with  impatience.  You 
foolish  little  girl,  can't  you  understand  what  a  muddle  you're 
making  of  life?" 

"I  want  to  wait  till  I'm  twenty-one,"  she  said. 

It  meant  nothing  to  her,  this  date ;  but  Maurice,  accepting  it 
as  an  actual  pledge  of  surrender,  could  only  rail  against  her 
unreasonableness. 

"Good  heavens!  What  for?  You  are  without  exception 
the  most  amazing  creature.  Twenty-one!  Why  twenty-one? 
Why  not  fifty-one?     Most  of  all,  why  not  now?" 

"I  can't.  Not  now.  Not  when  I've  just  left  home.  I 
should  feel  a  sneak.    Don't  ask  me  to,  Maurice.     If  you  love 


2  2  8  Carnival 

me,  as  you  say  you  do,  3'ou'll  wait  a  little  while  quite  happy." 

"But  don't  you  want  to  give  yourself  to  me?" 

"I  do,  and  then  again  I  don't.  Sometimes  I  think  I  will, 
and  then  sometimes  I  think  I  don't  want  to  give  myself  to 
any  man." 

"You  don't  love  me." 

"Yes,  I  do.  I  do.  Only  I  hate  men.  I  always  have.  I 
can't  explain  more  than  what  I've  told  you.  If  you  can't 
understand,  you  can't.     It's  because  you  don't  know  girls." 

"Don't  know  girls,"  he  repeated,  staggered  by  the  assertion. 
"Of  course  I  understand  your  point  of  view,  but  I  think  it's 
stupid  and  irrational  and  dangerous — yes — dangerous.  .  .  . 
Don't  know  girls?     I  wish  I  didn't." 

"You  don't,"  Jenny  persisted. 

"My  dear  child,  I  know  girls  too  well.  I  know  their 
wretched  stammering  temperaments,  their  inability  to  face 
facts,  their  lust  for  sentiment,  their  fondness  for  going  half- 
way and  turning  back." 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  keep  on  walking  up  and  down.  It 
makes  me  want  to  giggle.    And  when  I  laugh,  you  get  angry." 

"Laugh !  It  is  a  laughing  matter  to  you.  To  me  it's  some- 
thing so  serious,  so  sacred,  that  laughter  no  longer  exists." 

Jenny  thought  for  a  moment. 

"I  believe,"  she  began,  "I  should  laugh  whatever  happened. 
I   don't  believe  anything  would   stop  my  laughing." 

Just  then,  away  downstairs,  the  double  knock  of  a  telegraph 
boy  was  heard,  too  far  away  to  shake  the  nerves  of  Jenny 
and  Maurice,  but  still  sufficiently  a  reminder  of  another  life 
outside  their  own  to  interrupt  the  argument. 

"I  wonder   if  that's  for  me,"  said   Maurice. 

"You'd  better  go  down  and  see,  if  you  think  it  is." 

"Wait  a  minute.  Old  Mother  Wadman  may  answer  the 
door." 

Again,  far  below,  they  heard  the  summons  of  humanity. 

"Damn  Mrs.  Wadman!  I  wish  she  wouldn't  go  fooling 
out  in  the  afternoon." 


The  Unfinished  Statue  229 

"Why  don't  you  go  down,  Maurice?  He'll  go  away  in  a 
minute." 

Once  more,  very  sharply,  the  herald  demanded  an  entrance 
for  events  and  emotions  independent  of  their  love,  and  Mau- 
rice unwillingly  departed  to  admit  them. 

Left  alone  in  a  tumult  of  desires  and  repressions,  Jenny  felt 
she  would  like  to  fling  herself  down  upon  the  rugs  and  cry. 
Sentiment,  for  an  instant,  helped  the  cause  of  tears,  when  she 
thought  of  the  many  hours  spent  on  that  pile,  drowsily  happy. 
Then  backwards  and  forwards  went  the  image  of  her  lover 
in  ludicrous  movement,  and  the  whole  situation  seemed  such 
a  fuss  about  nothing.  There  was  a  merciless  clarity  about 
Jenny's  comprehension  when,  urged  by  scenes  of  passion,  she 
called  upon  her  mind  for  a  judgment.  Perhaps  it  was  the 
fatalism  of  an  untrained  reason  which  taught  her  to  grasp 
the  futility  of  emotional  strife.  Or  it  may  have  been  what 
is  called  a  sense  of  humor,  which  always  from  one  point  of 
view  must   imply   a  lack  of  imagination. 

Maurice  came  back  and  handed  her  the  telegram. 

Uncle  Stephen  died  suddenly  in  Seville  come  home  at 
once  please  dear  you  must  go  out  and  look  after  aunt 
Ella 

Mother 

"She's  fond  of  you,  isn't  she?" 

Maurice  looked  puzzled. 

"Your  mother,   I  mean." 

"Why?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  think  she's  written  very  nice,  that's  all. 
I  wish  you  hadn't  got  to  go  away  though." 

"Yes,  and  to  Spain  of  all  places.  This  is  the  uncle  I  was  tell- 
ing you  about.     I  come  into  two  thousand  pounds.    I  must  go." 

"I  wish  you  hadn't  got  to  go  away,"  she  repeated  sorrow- 
fully. "Just  when  the  weather's  getting  fine,  too.  But  you 
must  go,  of  course,"  she  added. 


230  Carnival 

Jenny  wrung  this  bidding  out  of  herself  very  hardly,  but 
Maurice  accepted  it  casually  enough.  Suddenly  he  was  seized 
with  an  idea: 

"Jenny,  this  two  thousand  pounds  is  the  key  to  the  situa- 
tion." 

"What?" 

"Of  course  I  can,"  he  assured  the  air.  "I  can  settle  this 
on  you.  I  can  provide  for  you,  whatever  happens  to  me. 
Now  there's  absolutely  no  reason  why  you  shouldn't  give 
way." 

"I  don't  see  that  two  thousand  pounds  makes  any  differ- 
ence.    What  do  you  think  I  am?" 

"I'm  not  buying  you,  my  dear  girl.  I'm  not  such  a  fool 
as  to  suppose  I  could  do  that." 

"No,  you  couldn't.     No  man  could  buy  me." 

"I'm  very  glad  of  it,"  he  said.  "What  I  mean  is  that  now 
I've  no  scruples  of  my  own  to  get  over.  This  is  certain.  I 
know  that  if  anything  happens  to  me,  you  would  be  all  right. 
Jenny,  you  must  say  'yes.'  " 

"I've  told  you  I  will  one  day.  Don't  keep  on  asking.  Be- 
sides, you're  going  away.  You'll  have  other  things  to  think 
about  besides  your  little  Jenny.  Only  come  back  soon,  Mau- 
rice, because  I  do  love  you  so." 

"Love  me!"  he  scoffed.  "Love  me!  Rot!  A  woman  with- 
out the  pluck  to  trust  herself  to  the  lover  talks  of  love.  It 
means  nothing,  this  love  of  yours.  It's  just  a  silly  fancy. 
Love  hasn't  widened  your  horizon.  Love  hasn't  given  your 
life  any  great  impetus.  Look  at  me — absolutely  possessed  by 
my  love  for  you.    That's  passion." 

"I  don't  think  it's  much  else,  I  don't,"  said  Jenny. 

"How  like  a  girl!  How  exactly  like  every  other  girl!  Good 
Lord,  and  I  thought  you  were  different.  I  thought  you 
wouldn't  be  so  blind  as  to  separate  love  from  passion." 

"I  don't.  I  do  love  you.  I  do  want  you,"  she  whispered. 
"Just  as  much  as  you  want  me,  but  not  now.  Oh,  Maurice, 
I  wish  you  could  understand." 


The  Unfinished  Statue         2  3  2 

"Well,  I  can't,"  he  said  coldl}'.  "Look  here,  you've  quar- 
reled with  your  mother.     That's  one  obstacle  out  of  the  way." 

"But  it  isn't.     She's  still  alive." 

"You've  known  me  long  enough  to  be  sure  I'm  not  likely 
to  turn  out  a  rotter.  You  needn't  worry  about  money,  and — 
you  love  me  or  pretend  to.  Now  why  in  the  name  of  fortune 
can't  you  be  sensible?" 

"But  there'll  come  a  moment,  Maurice  darling,  and  I  think 
it  will  come  soon,  when  I  shall  say  'yes'  of  my  own  accord. 
And  whatever  you  said  or  done  before  that  moment  couldn't 
make  me  say  'yes'  now." 

"And  meanwhile  I'm  to  go  on  wearing  myself  out  with 
asking?" 

"No,"  she  murmured,  afire  with  blushes  at  such  revelation 
of  himself.     "No,  I'll  say  'Maurice'  and  then  you'll  know." 

"And  I'm  to  go  off  to  Spain  with  nothing  to  hope  for  but 
'one  day,  one  day'?" 

"You'll  have  other  things  to  think  about  there." 

"You're  rather  amusing  with  jour  proposed  diversions  for 
my  imagination.  But,  seriously,  will  it  be  'yes'  when  I  come 
back,  say,  in  a  fortnight?" 

"No,  not  yet.  Not  for  a  little  while.  Oh,  don't  ask  me 
any  more;  you  are  unkind." 

Maurice  seemed  to  give  up  the  pursuit  suddenly. 

"I  sha'n't  see  you  for  some  time,"  he  said. 

"Never  mind,"  Jenny  consoled  him.  "Think  how  lovely  it 
will  be  when  we  do  see  each  other." 

"Good-bye,"  said  Maurice  bluntly. 

"Oh,  what  an  unnatural  way  to  say  good-bye." 

"Well,  I've  got  to  pack  up  and  catch  the  6.30  down  to 
Claybridge.     I'll  write  to  you." 

"You  needn't  trouble,"  she  told  him,  chilled  by  his  manner. 

"Don't  be  foolish,  I  must  write.     Good-bye,  Jenny." 

He  seemed  to  offer  his  embrace  more  from  habit  than  de- 


sire 

«IT» 


I've  got  to  change  first,"  she  said,   making  no  movement 


232  Carnival 


towards  the  enclosure  of  his  arms.  It  struck  them  both  that 
they  had  passed  through  a  thousand  emotions,  he  in  the  sculp- 
tor's blouse  of  his  affectation,  she  in  her  tarlatan  skirt. 

"It's  like  a  short  story  by  de  Maupassant,"  said  Maurice. 

"Is  it?    You  and  your  likes!     I'm  like  a  soppy  girl." 

"You  are,"  said  Maurice  with  intention.  To  Jenny,  for 
the  first  time,  he  seemed  to  be  criticising  her, 

"Thanks,"  she  said,  as,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulder  and 
curl  of  the  lip,  she  walked  out  of  the  studio,  coldly 
hostile. 

The  rage  was  too  deep  to  prevent  her  from  arranging  her 
hair  with  deliberation.  Nor  did  she  fumble  over  a  single  hook 
in  securing  the  skirt  of  ordinary  life.  Soon  Maurice  was  tap- 
ping at   the  door,   but  she  could   not  answer  him. 

"Jenny,"  he  called,  "I've  come  to  say  I'm  a  pig." 

Still  she  did  not  answer ;  but,  when  she  was  perfectly  ready, 
flung  open  the  door  and  said  tonelessly: 

"Please  let  me  pass." 

Her  eyes,  resentful,  their  luster  fled,  were  dull  as  lapis 
lazuli.     Her  lips  were  no  longer  visible. 

"You  mustn't  go  away  like  this.  Jenny,  we  sha'n't  see  one 
another  for  a  fortnight  or  more.  Don't  let's  part  bad 
friends." 

"Please  let  me  pass." 

He  stood  aside,  outfaced  by  such  determination,  and  Jenny, 
with  downcast  eyes  intent  upon  the  buttoning  of  her  glove, 
passed  him  carelessly. 

"Jenny!"  he  called  desperately  over  the  banisters.  "Jenny! 
Don't  go  like  that.  Darling,  don't;  I  can't  bear  it."  Then 
he  ran  to  catch  her  by  the  arm. 

"Kiss  me  good-bye  and  be  friends.  Do,  Jenny.  Jenny. 
Do!  Please!  I  can't  bear  to  see  your  practice  dress  lying 
there  on  the  floor." 

Sentiment  had  its  way  this  time,  and  Jenny  began  to 
cry. 

"Oh,  Maurice,"  she  wept,  "why  are  you  so  unkind  to  me? 


The  Unjinished  Statue  233 

I  hate  myself  for  spoiling  you  so,  but  I  must.  I  don't  care 
about  anything  excepting  you.     I  do  love  you,  Maurice." 

In  the  dusty  passage  they  were  friends  again. 

"And  now^  my  eyes  is  all  red,"  she  lamented. 

"Never  mind,  darling  girl.  Come  back  while  I  get  some 
things  together,  and  see  me  off  at  Waterloo,  will  you?" 

She  assented,  as  enlaced  they  went  up  again  to  the  studio. 

"It's  all  the  fault  of  that  rotten  statue,"  he  explained.  "I 
was  furious  with  myself  and  vented  it  on  you.  Never  mind. 
I'll  begin  again  when  I  come  back.  Look,  we'll  put  the  tarla- 
tan away  in  the  drawer  I  take  my  things  out  of.     Shall  we?" 

Soon  they  were  driving  in  a  hansom  cab  towards  the  railway 
station. 

"We  always  seem  to  wind  up  our  quarrels  in  cabs,"  Maurice 
observed. 

"I  don't  know  why  we  quarrel.     I  hate  quarreling." 

"We  won't  any  more." 

As  the  horse  strained  up  through  the  echomg  cavern  of 
Waterloo,  they  kissed  each  other  good-bye,  a  long,  long  kiss. 

There  were  still  ten  minutes  before  the  train  left,  and 
among  the  sweep  of  hurrying  passengers  and  noise  of  shouting 
porters  to  an  accompaniment  of  whistling,  rumbling  trains, 
Maurice  tried  to  voice  the  immortality  of  his  love. 

"Great  Scott,  I've  only  a  minute,"  he  said  suddenly.  "Look,- 
meet  me  on  Monday  week,  the  twenty-third,  here,  at  three- 
thirty.     Three-thirty  from  Claybridge.     Don't  forget." 

"Take  your  seats,  please,"  a  ticket  inspector  shouted  in  their 
ears.  Maurice  jumped  into  his  compartment  and  wrote 
quickly  on  an  envelope:    "3.30.  Waterloo.  Ap.  23.  Claybridge." 

"Good-bye,  darling,  darling  girl.  I'll  bring  you  back  some 
castanets  and  a  Spanish  frock." 

"Good-bye.     See  you  soon." 

"Very,  very  soon.    Think  of  me." 

"Rather." 

The  train  went  curling  out  of  the  station. 

"I  shall  be  early  in  the  theater  to-night,"  Jenny  thought. 


chapter  XXIII:    Two  Letters 

Hotel  de  Paris,  Sevilla,  Spain. 
April  17. 
My  dear  and  lovely  one, 

I've  not  had  time  to  v^^rite  before.  I  meant  to  send  you 
a  letter  from  the  train,  but  I  left  all  my  notepaper  and  pencils 
in  the  station  restaurant  at  a  place  called  Miranda,  and  went 
to  sleep  instead. 

I  find  that  my  uncle  has  left  me  more  than  I  expected — 
five  thousand  pounds,  in  fact.  So  I  want  to  buy  you  a  delight- 
ful little  house  somewhere  quite  close  to  London.  You  could 
have  a  maid  and  you  could  go  on  dancing  if  you  liked.  Only 
I  do  want  you  to  say  "yes"  at  once.  I  want  you  to  write  by 
return  and  tell  me  you're  going  to  give  up  all  doubts  and 
worries  and  scruples.    Will  you,  my  precious? 

I've  got  another  splendid  plan.  I  want  you  to  come  and 
join  me  in  Spain  in  about  a  week.  I  shall  be  able  to  meet  you 
in  Paris,  because  I  am  going  to  escort  my  aunt  so  far  on  the 
way  home.  Fuz  will  look  out  your  trains.  You  must  come. 
He  can  arrange  to  give  you  any  money  you  want.  We  need 
not  stay  away  very  long — about  a  month.  Sevilla  is  p>erfect. 
The  weather  is  divine.  Get  yourself  some  cool  frocks.  We'll 
sit  in  the  Alcazar  garden  all  day.  It's  full  of  lemon  trees  and 
fountains.  In  the  evening  we'll  sit  on  a  balcony  and  smoke 
and  listen  to  guitars. 

My  darling,  I  do  so  adore  you.  Please,  please,  come  out  to 
Spain  and  give  up  not  knowing  your  own  mind.  I  miss  you 
tremendously.  I  feel  this  beautiful  city  is  wasted  without  you. 
I'm  sure  if  30U  determined  not  to  bother  about  anything  but 
love,  you'd  never  regret  it.     You  wouldn't  really.     Dearest, 

234 


Two  Letters  235 

sweetest  Jenny,  do  come.  I'm  longing  for  my  treasure.  It's 
wonderfully  romantic  sitting  here  in  the  patio  of  the  hotel — a 
sort  of  indoor  garden — and  thinking  so  hard  of  my  gay  and 
sweet  one  away  in  London.  Darling,  I'm  sending  you  kisses 
thick  as  stars,  all  the  way  from  Spain.    All  my  heart. 

Your  lover, 

Maurice. 

Jenny  was  lying  in  bed  when  she  received  this  letter.  The 
unfamiliar  stamp  and  crackling  paper  suited  somehow  the 
bedroom  at  Stacpole  Terrace  to  which  she  was  not  yet  accus- 
tomed. Such  a  letter  containing  such  a  request  would  have 
seemed  very  much  out  of  place  in  the  little  room  she  shared 
at  home  with  May.  But  here,  so  dismal  was  the  prospect  of 
life,  she  felt  inclined  to  abandon  everything  and  join  her  lover. 

The  Dales  were  a  slovenly  family.  Mr.  Dale  himself  was 
a  nebulous  creature  whom  rumor  had  endowed  with  a  pension. 
It  never  specified  for  what  services  nor  even  stated  the  amount 
in  plain  figures;  and  a  more  widely  extended  belief  that  the 
household  was  maintained  by  the  Orient  management  through 
Winnie  and  Irene  Dale's  dancing,  supplanted  the  more  digni- 
fied tradition,  Mr.  Dale  was  generally  comatose  on  a  flock- 
exuding  chair-bed  in  what  was  known  as  "dad's  room."  There 
in  the  dust,  surrounded  by  a  fortification  of  dented  hatboxes, 
he  perused  old  Sunday  newspapers  whose  mildewed  leaves  were 
destroyed  biennially  like  Canterbury  Bells.  Mrs.  Dale  was  a 
beady-eyed,  round  woman  with  a  passion  for  bonnets,  capes, 
soliloquies  and  gin.  Her  appearance  and  her  manners  were 
equally  unpleasant.  She  possessed  a  batch  of  grievances  of 
which  the  one  most  often  aired  was  her  missing  of  the  Clacton 
Belle  one  Sunday  morning  four  years  ago.  Jenny  disliked  her 
more  completely  than  anybody  in  the  world,  regarding  her 
merely  as  something  too  large  and  too  approximately  human 
to  extirpate.  Winnie  Dale,  the  smoothed-out  replica  of  her 
mother,  was  equally  obnoxious.  She  had  long  lost  all  the 
comeliness  which  still  distinguished  Irene,  and  possessed  an 
irritating  liabit  of  apostrophizing  her  affection  for  a  fishmonger 

ivJ 


236 


Carnival 


— some  prosperous  libertine  who  occasionally  cast  an  eye, 
glazed  like  one  of  his  own  cods,  at  Jenny  herself,  Ethel, 
the  third  sister,  was  still  in  short  frocks  because  her  intelli- 
gence had  not  kept  pace  with  her  age. 

"The  poor  little  thing  talks  like  a  child,"  Mrs.  Dale  would 
explain.     "So  I  dresses  her  like  a  child.     It's  less  noticeable." 

"Which  is  silly,"  Jenny  used  to  comnient.  "Because  she's 
as  tall  as  a  house  and  everybody  turns  round  to  look  after 
her." 

Jenny  would  scarcely  have  tolerated  this  family  for  a  week, 
if  she  had  been  brought  at  all  closely  or  frequently  in  contact 
with  them;  but  so  much  of  the  day  was  spent  with  Maurice 
and  all  the  evening  at  the  theater  that  Stacpole  Terrace  implied 
little  beyond  breakfast  in  bed  and  bed  itself.  Sometimes,  in- 
deed, when  she  went  home  to  tea  at  Hagworth  Street  and  saw 
the  brightness  of  the  glass  and  shimmer  of  clean  crockery,  she 
was  on  the  verge  of  sinking  her  pride  in  a  practical  reconcilia- 
tion. Nine  weeks  passed,  however,  making  it  more  difficult 
every  day  to  admit  herself  in  the  wrong;  although,  during  the 
absence  of  Maurice,  it  became  a  great  temptation.  Therefore, 
when  this  letter  arrived  from  Spain,  inviting  her  to  widen 
the  breach  with  her  family,  she  was  half  inclined  to  play  with 
the  idea  of  absolute  severance.  Flight,  swift  and  sudden, 
appealed  to  her  until  the  difficulty  of  making  arrangements 
began  to  obscure  other  considerations.  The  thought  of  pack- 
ing, of  catching  trains  and  steamers,  of  not  knowing  exactly 
what  frocks  to  buy,  oppressed  her;  then  a  fear  took  hold  of 
her  fancy  lest,  something  happening  to  Maurice,  she  might 
find  herself  alone  in  a  foreign  city;  and  at  the  end  of  it  all 
there  was  her  childhood  in  a  vista  of  time,  her  childhhood  with 
the  presence  of  her  mother  brooding  over  it,  her  mother  dearly 
loved  whatever  old-fashioned  notions  she  preserved  of  obedi- 
ence and  strictness  of  behavior.  It  would  be  mean  to  outrage, 
as  she  knew  she  would,  her  mother's  pride,  and  to  hand  her 
over  to  the  criticisms  of  a  mob  of  relatives.  It  would  be 
mean  to  desert  May,  who  even  now  might  be  crying  on  a  soli- 


Two  Letters  237 

tary  pillow.  But  when  she  went  downstairs  dressed  and  saw 
the  Dale  family  in  morning  deshabille,  uncorseted,  flabby  and 
heavy-eyed,  crouching  over  the  parlor  fire,  and  when  she 
thought  of  Maurice  and  the  empty  studio,  Jenny's  resolution 
was  shaken  and  she  was  inclined  to  renounce  every  duty,  face 
every  difficulty  and  leave  her  world  behind, 

"You  do  look  a  sulky  thing,"  said  Irene.  "Coming  to  sit 
round  the  fire?" 

"No,  thanks,"  said  Jenny.     "I  haven't  got  the  time." 

"Your  young  chap's  away,  isn't  he?"  asked  Winnie. 

"What's  it  got  to  do  with  you  where  he  is?" 

Jenny  was  in  a  turmoil  of  nervous  indecision,  and  felt  that 
whatever  else  she  did,  she  must  be  quit  of  Stacpole  Terrace  for 
that  day  at  least.  She  debated  the  notion  of  going  home,  of 
telling  her  mother  everything;  but  the  imagination  of  such  an 
exposure  of  her  most  intimate  thoughts  dried  her  up.  It 
would  be  like  taking  off  her  clothes  in  front  of  a  crowd  of 
people.  Then  she  thought  of  going  home  without  reference 
to  the  past;  but  she  w^as  prevented  by  the  expectation  of  her 
mother's  readiness  to  believe  the  worst,  and  the  inevitably 
stricter  supervision  to  which  her  submission  would  render  her 
liable.  In  the  end,  she  compromised  with  her  inclination  by 
deciding  to  visit  Edie  and  find  out  what  sort  of  sturdy  rogue 
her  nephew  was  by  now. 

Edie  lived  at  Camberwell  in  a  small  house  covered  with 
Virginia  creeper  not  yet  in  leaf,  still  a  brownish  red  mat  which 
depressed  Jenny  as  she  rattled  the  flap  of  the  letterbox  and 
called  her  sister's  name  through  the  aperture.  Presently  Edie 
opened   the  door. 

"Why,  if  it  isn't  Jenny.    Well  I  never,  you  are  a  stranger." 

Edie  was  shorter  than  Jenny  and  more  round.  Yet  for  all 
her  plumpness  she  looked  worn,  and  her  slanting  eyes,  never 
so  bright  as  Jenny's,  were  ringed  with  purple  cavities. 

"How  are  you,  Edie,  all  this  long  time?" 

"Oh,  I'm  grand;  how's  yourself?" 

"I'm  all  right." 


238 


Carnival 


The  two  sisters  were  sitting  in  the  parlor,  which  smelt  un- 
used, although  it  was  covered  with  lengths  of  material  and 
brown-paper  patterns.  By  the  window  was  a  dressmaker's 
bust,  mournfully  buxom.  Jenny  compared  it  with  the  lay 
figure  in  the  studio  and  smiled,  thinking  how  funny  they  would 
look  together. 

"I  wish  Bert  was  in,"  said  Edie.  "But  he's  away  on  busi- 
ness." 

Just  then  a  sound  of  tears  was  audible,  and  the  mother  had 
to  run  out  of  the  room. 

"The  children  gets  a  nuisance,"  she  said,  as  she  came  back 
comforting  Eunice,  a  little  girl  of  two. 

"Isn't  she  growing  up  a  little  love?"  said  Jenny.  "Oh,  I 
do  think  she's  pretty.     What  glorious  eyes  she's  got." 

"They're  like  her  father's,  people  say;  but  young  Norman, 
he's  the  walking  life-like  of  you,  Jenny." 

"Where  is  the  rogue?"  his  aunt  inquired. 

"Where's  Norman,  Eunice?" 

"Out  in  the  garding,  digging  gwaves,"  said  Eunice  in  a  fat 
voice. 

Jenny  had  a  sudden  longing  to  have  a  child  of  her  own 
and  live  in  a  little  house  quite  close  to  London. 

"Why,   I  don't  believe  you've  ever  seen  Baby,"  said  Edie. 

"Of  course  I  have,  but  not  for  some  months." 

They  went  upstairs  to  look  at  Baby,  who  was  lying  asleep 
in  his  cot.  Jenny  felt  oppressed  by  the  smallness  of  the  bed- 
room and  the  many  enlargements  of  Bert's  likeness  in  youth 
which  dwarfed  every  other  ornament.  They  recurred  every- 
where in  extravagantly  gilt  frames;  and  the  original  photo- 
graph was  on  the  chest  of  drawers  opposite  one  of  Edie  wear- 
ing a  fringe  and  balloon  sleeves. 

"There's  another  coming  in  five  months,"  said  Edie. 

"Go  on.     How  many  more?" 

"I  don't  know — plenty  yet,  I  expect." 

The  magic  of  home  that  for  a  few  moments  had  enchanted 
the   little   house   was   dispelled.      Moreover,    at   tea    Norman 


Two  Letters  239 

smeared    his   face    with   jam,    and    snatched,    and    kicked    his 
mother  because  she  slapped  his  wrist. 

"Why  do  iou  let  him  behave  so  bad?"  asked  Jenny,  uncon- 
scious that  she  was  already  emulating  her  own  hated  Aunt 
Mabel. 

"I  don't,  only  he's  such  a  handful;  and  his  dad  spoils  him. 
Besides,  anything  for  a  bit  of  peace  and  quiet.  Bert  never 
thinks  what  a  worry  children  is,  and  as  if  I  hadn't  got  enough 
to  look  after,  he  brought  back  a  dog  last  week." 

"Why  don't  you   tell  him  off?" 

"Oh,  it's  easier  to  humor  him.  You'll  find  that  out  quick 
enough  when  you're  married  yourself." 

"Me  married?     I  don't  think." 

On  the  way  to  the  theater  that  evening  Jenny  almost  made 
up  her  mind  to  join  Maurice,  and  would  probably  have  been 
constant  to  her  resolve,  had  it  not  been  for  one  of  those 
trivial  incidents  which  more  often  than  great  events  change 
the  whole  course  of  a  life. 

Because  she  did  not  like  the  idea  of  sitting  in  meditation 
opposite  a  row  of  inquisitive  faces,  she  took  a  seat  outside  the 
tramcar  that  came  swaying  and  clanging  down  the  Camber- 
well  New  Road.  It  was  twilight  by  now,  and,  as  the  tramcar 
swung  round  into  Kennington  Gate,  there  was  a  wide  view 
of  the  sky  full  of  purple  cloudbanks,  islands  in  a  pale  blue 
luminous  sea  where  the  lights  of  ships  could  easily  be  conjured 
from  the  uncertain  stars  contending  with  the  afterglow  of  an 
April  sunset.  Jenny  sat  on  the  back  seat  and  watched  along 
the  Kennington  Road  the  incandescent  gas  suffuse  room  after 
room  with  a  sickly  phosphorescence  in  which  the  inhabitants 
seemed  to  swim  like  fish  in  an  aquarium.  All  the  rooms  thus 
illuminated  looked  alike.  All  the  windows  had  a  fretwork 
of  lace  curtains;  all  the  tables  were  covered  with  black  and 
red  checkered  cloths  on  which  was  superimposed  half  a  white 
cloth  covered  with  the  remains  of  tea ;  all  the  flower  vases  wore 
crimped  paper  petticoats;  all  the  people  inside  the  cheerless 
rooms  looked  tired. 


240  Carnival 

Jenny  pulled  out  the  foreign  letter  and  read  of  sunlight  and 
love.  She  began  to  dream  of  kisses  amid  surroundings  some- 
thing like  the  principal  scene  of  an  Orient  ballet,  and,  as  Lon- 
don became  more  and  more  intolerably  dreary,  over  her  senses 
stole  the  odor  of  a  cigar  that  carried  her  mind  racing  back 
to  the  past.  Somewhere  long  ago  her  mother,  wanting  to  go 
away  with  someone,  had  stayed  behind ;  and  for  the  first  time 
Jenny  comprehended  mistily  that  now  forgotten  renunciation. 
She  fell  to  thinking  of  her  mother  tenderly,  began  to  be  ob- 
livious of  interference,  to  remember  only  her  merry  tales  and 
laughter  and  kindness.  The  strength  which  long  ago  enabled 
Mrs.  Raeburn  to  refuse  the  nice  little  house  and  the  Ralli 
car  seemed  to  find  a  renewed  power  of  expression  in  her  daugh- 
ter. At  present,  Jenny  thought,  kisses  in  Spain  must  still  be 
dreams.  That  night,  in  the  cheerless  parlor  of  the  Dales,  she 
wrote  in  watery  ink  to  Maurice  that  she  could  not  meet  him 
in  Paris. 

43  Stacpole  Terrace,  Camden  Town. 

Friday. 
My  darling  Maurice, 

I  can't  come  to  Spain — I  can't  leave  my  mother  like 
that — I  should  feel  a  sneak — hurry  up  and  come  home  because 
I  miss  you  very  much  all  the  time — It's  no  use  to  wish  I  could 
come — But  I  will  tell  you  about  it  when  you  come  home — I 
wish  you  was  here  now.  With  heaps  of  love  from  your  dar- 
ling Jenny. 

Irene  sends  her  love  and  hopes  you're  having  a  good  time. 


Chapter  XXIV:  Journey  s  End 

JENNY  received  a  post  card  from  Maurice  in  answer  to 
her  letter.  She  was  glad  he  made  no  attempt  to  argue 
a  point  of  view  which  his  absence  had  already  modified 
more  persuasively  than  any  pleading.  During  the  summer, 
perhaps  on  one  of  those  expeditions  long  talked  of,  she  would 
make  him  her  own  with  one  word;  having  sacrificed  much 
on  account  of  her  mother,  she  was  not  prepared  to  sacrifice 
all;  and  when  Maurice  came  back,  when  she  saw  his  blue  eyes 
quick  with  love's  fires,  and  knew  again  the  sorcery  of  hands 
and  breathless  enfolding  of  arms,  it  would  be  easy  upon  his 
heart  to  swoon  out  of  everything  except  compliance.  Aglow 
with  tenderness,  she  wrote  a  second  letter  hinting  that  no 
chain  was  wanting  but  the  sight  of  him  to  bind  her  finally  and 
completely.  Yet,  with  whatever  periphrasis  she  wrapped  it 
round,  the  resolve  was  not  to  be  expressed  with  a  pen.  Re- 
corded so,  it  seemed  to  lose  something  vital  to  its  beauty  of 
purpose.  However  thoughtfully  she  wrote  and  obliterated 
and  wrote  again,  at  the  end  it  always  gave  the  impression  of 
a  bargain.  She  tore  the  letter  up.  No  sentence  she  knew 
how  to  write  would  be  heavy  with  the  velvet  glooms  of  sum- 
mer nights,  prophetic  of  that  supreme  moment  now  at  hand 
when  girlhood  should  go  in  a  rapture. 

A  week  went  by,  and  Jenny  received  another  post  card, 
postponing  the  date  of  his  return  to  May  I.  She  was  much 
disappointed,  but  took  the  envelope  he  had  given  her  at  Water- 
loo, and  altered,  half  in  fun,  half  seriously,  April  23  to  May  i. 

The  night  before  she  was  to  meet  IVIaurice,   there  was  a 

241 


242  Carnival 

heavy  fall  of  rain  reminding  her  of  the  night  they  first  drove 
home  together.  She  lay  awake  listening  to  the  pervading 
sound  of  the  water  and  thinking  how  happy  she  was.  There 
was  no  little  sister  to  cuddle  now;  but  with  the  thought  of 
Maurice  on  his  way  home  to  her  kisses,  her  imagination  was 
full  of  company.  It  was  a  morning  of  gold  and  silver  when 
she  was  first  conscious  of  the  spent  night.  The  room  was 
steeped  in  rich  illuminations.  Sparrows  twittered  very  noisily, 
and  their  shadows  would  sometimes  slip  across  the  dingy  walls 
and  ceiling.  "To-day,"  thought  Jenny,  as,  turning  over  in  a 
radiancy  of  dreams  and  blushes  and  murmurous  awakenings, 
she  fell  asleep  for  two  more  slow  hours  of  a  lover's  absence. 
The  later  morning  was  passed  in  unpicking  and  re-shaping 
the  lucky  green  hat  which  had  lain  hidden  since  the  autumn. 
There  was  no  time,  however,  to  perfect  its  restoration;  and 
Jenny  had  to  be  content  with  a  new  saxe-blue  dress  in  which 
she  looked  very  trim  and  eager  under  a  black  mushroom  hat 
a-blow  with  rosebuds. 

It  was  about  two  o'clock  when  she  went  down  the  steps  of 
43  Stacpole  Terrace  in  weather  fit  for  a  lovers'  meeting. 
Great  swan-white  clouds  breasted  the  deepening  azure  of  May 
skies.  The  streets  were  dazzlingly  wet  with  the  night's  rain, 
and  every  puddle  was  as  blue  as  a  river.  In  front  gardens 
tulips  burned  with  their  fiery  jets  of  color  and  the  lime  tree 
buds  were  breaking  into  vivid  green  fans  through  every  paling, 
while  in  the  baskets  of  flower-women  cowslips  fresh  from 
chalky  pastures  lay  close  as  woven  wool.  Every  blade  of 
grass  in  the  dingy  squares  of  Camden  Town  was  of  emerald, 
and  gardeners  were  strewing  the  paths  with  bright  orange 
gravel.  Children  were  running  against  the  wind,  pink  bal- 
loons floating  in  their  wake.  Children  solemnly  holding  paper 
windmills  to  catch  the  breeze  were  wheeled  along  in  mail-carts 
and  perambulators.  Surely  of  all  the  lovers  that  went  to 
keep  a  May-day  tryst,  none  ever  went  more  sweet  and  gay 
than  Jenny. 

She   left    the   Tube    at    Charing   Cross   and,    being   early, 


yourney  s  End  243 

walked  along  the  Embankment  to  Westminster  Bridge.  As 
she  crossed  the  river,  she  looked  over  the  splash  and  glitter  of 
the  stream  towards  Grosvenor  Road  and  up  at  Big  Ben,  think- 
ing, with  a  sigh  of  content,  how  she  and  Maurice  would  be 
sitting  in  the  studio  by  four  o'clock.  At  Waterloo  there 
was  half  an  hour  to  wait  for  the  train ;  but  it  was  not  worth 
while  to  buy  a  stupid  paper  when  she  could  actually  count 
the  minutes  that  were  ticking  on  with  Maurice  behind  them. 
It  was  3.25.  Her  heart  began  to  beat  as  the  enormous  clock 
hand  jerked  its  way  to  the  time  of  reunion.  Not  because  she 
wanted  to  know,  but  because  she  felt  she  must  do  something 
during  that  last  five  minutes,  Jenny  asked  a  porter  whether  this 
were  the  right  platform  for  the  3.30  from  Clay- 
bridge. 

"Just  signaled,  miss,"  he  said. 

Would  Maurice  be  looking  out  of  the  window?  Would 
he  be  brown  with  three  weeks  of  Spanish  weather?  Would 
he  be  waving,  or  would  he  be   .    .    . 

The  train  was  curling  into  the  station.  How  much  happier 
it  looked  than  the  one  which  curled  out  of  it  three  weeks  ago. 
Almost  before  she  was  aware  of  its  noise,  it  had  pulled  up, 
blackening  the  platforms  with  passengers  that  tumbled  like 
chessmen  from  a  box.  Maurice  was  not  immediately  appar- 
ent, and  Jenny  in  search  of  him  worked  her  way  against 
the  stream  of  people  to  the  farther  end  of  the  train.  She  felt 
an  increasing  chill  upon  her  as  the  contrary  movement  grew 
weaker  and  the  knots  of  people  became  more  sparse;  so  that 
when  beyond  the  farthest  coach  she  stood  desolate  under  the 
station  roof  and  looked  back  upon  the  now  almost  empty  line  of 
platform,  she  was  frozen  by  disappointment. 

"Luggage,  miss?"  a  porter  asked. 

Jenny  shooked  her  head  and  retraced  her  steps  regretfully, 
watching  the  satisfied  hansoms  drive  off  one  by  one.  It  was 
impossible  that  Maurice  could  have  failed  her:  she  must  have 
made  a  mistake  over  the  time.  She  took  the  envelope  from 
her  bag  and  read  the  directions  again.     Could  he  have  come 


2  44  Carnival 

on  the  23rd  after  all?  No,  the  post  card  was  plain  enough. 
The  platform  was  absolutely  empty  now,  and  already  the  train 
was  backing  out  of  the  station. 

With  an  effort  she  turned  from  the  prospect  and  walked 
slowly  towards  the  exit.  Then  she  had  an  idea.  Maurice 
must  have  missed  the  3.30  and  was  coming  by  the  next.  There 
was  another  in  half  an  hour,  she  found  out  from  a  porter, 
but  it  came  in  to  a  platform  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  station. 
So  she  walked  across  and  sat  down  to  wait,  less  happily  than 
before,  but,  as  the  great  hand  climbed  up  towards  the  hour, 
with  increasing  hopefulness. 

Again  the  platform  was  blackened  by  emerging  crowds. 
This  time  sht  took  up  a  position  by  the  engine.  A  cold  wave 
of  unfamiliar  faces  swept  past  her.  Maurice  had  not  arrived. 
It  was  useless  to  wait  any  longer.  Reluctantly  she  began  to 
walk  away,  stopping  sometimes  to  look  back.  Maurice  had  not 
arrived.  With  throbbing  nerves  and  sick  heart  Jenny  reached 
York  Road  and  stood  in  a  gray  dream  by  the  edge  of  the 
pavement.  A  taxi  drew  up  alongside,  and  she  got  in,  telling 
the  man  to  drive  to  422  Grosvenor  Road. 

The  river  still  sparkled,  but  Big  Ben  had  struck  four 
o'clock  without  them  sitting  together  in  the  studio.  The  taxi 
had  a  narrow  escape  from  a  bad  accident.  Ordinarily  Jenny 
would  have  been  terrified;  but  now,  bitterly  and  profoundly 
careless,  she  accepted  the  jar  of  the  brakes,  the  volley  of  re- 
criminations and  the  gaping  of  foot  passengers  with  remote 
equanimity.  Notwithstanding  her  presentiment  of  the  worst, 
as  the  taxi  reached  the  familiar  line  of  houses  by  which  she 
had  so  often  driven  passionate,  sleepy,  mirthful,  sometimes  one 
of  a  jolly  party,  sometimes  alone  with  Maurice  in  ecstasies 
unparagoned,  Jenny  began  to  tell  herself  that  nothing  was  the 
matter,  that  when  she  arrived  at  the  studio  he  would  be  there. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  he  thought  he  had  mentioned  another  train: 
his  post  card  in  alteration  of  the  date  had  not  confirmed  the 
time.  Already  she  was  beginning  to  rail  at  herself  for  being 
upset  so  easily,  when  the  taxi  stopped  and  Jenny  alighted.    She 


yourney  s  End  245 


let  the  man  drive  off  before  she  rang.  When  he  was  out  of 
sight  she  pressed  the  studio  bell  three  times  so  that  Maurice 
should  not  think  it  was  "kids";  and  ran  down  the  steps  and 
across  the  road  looking  up  to  the  top  floor  for  the  heartening 
wave.  The  windows  were  closed:  they  seemed  steely  and 
ominous.  She  rang  again,  knowing  it  was  useless;  yet  the  bell 
was  often  out  of  order.  She  peered  over  at  the  basement  for 
a  glimpse  of  Mrs.  Wadman.  Hysterical  by  now,  she  rang  tho 
bells  of  other  floors.  Nobody  answered ;  not  even  Fuz  was 
in.  Wings  of  fire,  alternating  with  icy  fans,  beat  against  her 
brain.  The  dr.mnable  stolidity  of  the  door  enraged  her,  and, 
when  she  knocked  its  impassivness  made  her  numb  and  sick. 
Her  heart  was  wilting  in  a  frost,  and,  as  the  last  cold  ache 
died  away  in  oblivion,  arrows  of  flame  would  horribly  restore 
it  to  life  and  agony.  She  rang  the  bells  again,  one  after  an- 
other; she  rang  them  slowly  in  studied  permutations;  quickly 
and  savagely  she  pressed  them  all  together  with  the  length  of 
her  forearm.  The  cherubs  on  the  carved  porch  turned  to 
demons,  and  from  demons  vanished  into  nothing.  The  pal- 
ings on  either  side  of  the  steps  became  invalid,  unsubstantial, 
deliquescent  like  material  objects  in  a  nightmare.  A  catas- 
trophe of  all  emotion  collapsed  about  her  mind,  and  when 
gladly  she  seemed  to  be  fainting,  Jenny  heard  the  voice  of 
Castleton  a  long  way  off. 

"Oh,  Fuz,  where  is  he?     Where's  Maurice?" 

"W^hy,  I  thought  you  were  meeting  him.  I've  been  out  all 
day." 

Then  Jenny  realized  the  door  was  still  shut. 

"He  wasn't  there.     Not  at  Waterloo." 

She  was  walking  slowly  upstairs  now  beside  Castleton.  The 
fever  of  disappointment  had  left  her,  and  outwardly  tranquil, 
she  was  able  to  explain  her  reeling  agitation.  The  studio 
looked  cavernously  empty ;  already  on  the  well-remembered 
objects  lay  a  web  of  dust.  The  jars  still  held  faded  pink 
tulips.  The  fragments  of  The  Tired  Dancer  still  littered  the 
grate. 


246 


Carnival 


"Wait  a  minute,"  Castleton  said;  "I'll  see  if  there's  a  letter 
for  me  downstairs." 

Presently  he  came  back  with  a  sheet  of  crackling  paper. 

"Shall  I  read  you  what  he  says?" 

Jenny  nodded,  and,  while  he  read,  wrote  with  her  finger, 
"3.30  Claybridge,"  many  times  in  the  dust  that  lay  thick  on 
the  closed  lid  of  the  piano. 

This  was  the  letter: 

Dear  Castleton, 

I've  settled  not  to  come  back  to  England  for  a  while. 
One  makes  plans  and  the  plans  don't  come  ofF.  I  can't  work 
in  England  and  am  better  out  of  it.  Let  me  hear  that  Jenny  is 
all  right.  I  think  she  will  be.  I  didn't  write  to  her,  I  just 
sent  a  post  card  saying  I  should  not  be  at  Waterloo  on  the  first 
of  May.  I  expect  you'll  think  I'm  heartless,  but  something 
has  gone  snap  inside  me  and  I  don't  honestly  care  what  you 
think.  I'm  going  to  Morocco  in  two  or  three  days.  I  want 
adventures.  I'll  send  you  a  check  for  my  share  of  the  rent  in 
June.     If  you  write,  write  to  me  at  the  English  Post  Office, 

Tangiers. 

Yours, 

Maurice  Avery. 

"Is  that  what  he  says.^"  Jenny  asked. 

"That's  all." 

"And  he  wants  to  hear  I'm  all  right?" 

"He  says  so." 

"Tell  him  from  me  this  little  girl's  all  right,"  said  Jenny. 
"There's  plenty  more  mothers  got  sons.  Plenty.  Tell  him 
that  when  you  write." 

Her  sentences  rattled  like  musketry. 

Castleton  stared  vaguely  in  the  direction  of  the  river  as  if 
a  friendship  were  going  out  on  the  tide. 

"But  I  don't  want  to  write,"  he  said.  "I  couldn't.  Still, 
there's  one  thing.     I  don't  believe  it's  another  woman." 

"Who  cares  if  it  is?"  There  was  a  wistfulness  about  her 
brave  indifference.     "Men  are  funny.     It  might  be." 


yourneys  End  247 

"I  don't  somehow  think  it  is.  I'd  rather  not.  I  was  very 
fond  of  him." 

"So  was  I,"  said  Jenny  simply.  "Only  he's  a  rotter  like 
all  men." 

It  was  strange  how  neither  of  them  seemed  able  to  mention 
his  name.  Already  he  had  lost  his  individuality  and  was 
merged   in   a  type. 

"What  will  you  do?"  Castleton  asked. 

"There's  a  question.      How  should  I  know?" 

Before  her  mind  life  like  a  prairie  rolled  away  into  distance 
infinitely  dull. 

"It  was  a  foolish  question.  I'm  sorry.  I  wish  you'd  marry 
me. 

Jenny  looked  at  him  with  sad  eyes  screwed  up  in  perplexity. 

"I  believe  you  would,  Fuz." 

"I  would.     I  would." 

"But  I  couldn't.  I  don't  want  to  see  any  of  you  ever 
again," 

Castleton  seemed  to  shrink. 

"I'm  not  being  rude,  Fuz,  really.    Only  I  don't  want  to." 

"I   perfectly   understand." 

"You  mustn't  be  cross  with  me." 

"Cross!     Oh,  Jane,  do  I  sound  cross?" 

"Because,"  Jenny  went  on,  "if  I  saw  you  or  any  of  his 
friends,  I  should  only  hate  you.  Good-bye,  I  must 
run." 

"You're  all  right  for  money?"  Castleton  stammered  awk- 
wardly.     "I  mean — there's — oh,  damn  it,  Jenny!" 

He  pounded  over  to  the  window,  huge  and  disconsolate. 

"Why  ever  on  earth  should  I  want  money?  What's  the 
matter  with  next  Friday's  Treasury?" 

"Perhaps,  Jenny,  you  would  come  out  with  me  once,  if  I 
waited  for  you  one  night?" 

"Please  don't.  I  should  only  stare  you  out.  I  wouldn't 
know  you.     I  don't  ever  ever  want  to  see  any  of  you  again." 

She  ran  from  the  studio,  vanishing  like  a  flame  into  smoke. 


248 


Carnival 


That  night  when  Jenny  went  back  alone  to  Stacpole  Ter- 
race, she  saw  on  the  table  in  the  cheerless  parlor  the  post  card 
from  Maurice,  and  close  beside  it  the  green  hat  bought  in 
September  still  waiting  to  be  re-shaped  for  the  spring.  She 
threw  it  into  a  corner  of  the  room. 


Chapter  XXV:  Monotone 

JENNY'S  first  thought  was  an  impulse  of  revenge  upon 
the  opposite  sex  comparable  with,  but  more  drastic 
than,  the  resolution  she  had  made  on  hearing  of  Edie's 
disaster.  She  would  devote  her  youth  to  "doing  men  down." 
It  was  as  if  from  the  desert  of  the  soul  seared  by  Maurice, 
the  powers  of  the  body  were  to  sweep  like  a  wild  tribe  maim- 
ing the  creators  of  her  solitude.  Maurice  had  stood  for  her 
as  the  epitome  of  man,  and  it  was  to  be  expected  that  when  he 
fell,  he  would  involve  all  men  in  the  ruin.  This  hostility 
extended  so  widely  that  even  her  father  was  included,  and 
Jenny  found  herself  brooding  upon  the  humiliation  of  his 
share  in  her  origin. 

This  violent  enmity  finding  its  expression  in  physical  repul- 
sion defeated  itself,  and  Jenny  could  no  longer  attract  vic- 
tims. Moreover,  the  primal  instincts  of  sex  perished  in  the 
drought  of  emotion;  and  soon  she  wished  for  oblivion,  dread- 
ing any  activity  of  disturbance.  The  desert  was  made,  and 
was  vast  enough  to  circumscribe  the  range  of  her  vision  with 
its  expanse  of  monotony.  Educated  in  Catholic  ideals,  she 
would  have  fled  to  a  nunnery,  there  coldly  to  languish  until 
the  fires  of  divine  adorations  should  burst  from  the  ashes  of 
earthly  love.  Nunneries,  however,  were  outside  Jenny's  set 
of  conceptions.  Death  alone  would  endow  her  with  painless 
indifference  in  a  perpetual  serenity;  but  the  fear  of  death  in 
one  who  lacked  ability  to  regard  herself  from  outside  was  not 
mitigated  by  pictorial  consolations.     She  could  never  separate 

249 


250  Carnival 

herself  into  audience  and  actor.  Extinction  appalled  one  pro- 
foundly conscious  of  herself  as  an  entity.  By  such  a  stroke 
she  would  obliterate  not  merely  herself,  but  her  world  as  well. 
Suicides  generally  possess  the  power  of  mental  dichotomy. 
They  kill  themselves,  paradoxically,  to  see  the  effect.  They 
are  sorry  for  themselves,  or  angry,  or  contemptuous:  madness 
disintegrates  their  sense  of  personality  so  that  the  various  com- 
ponents run  together.  In  a  madman's  huggermugger  of  mo- 
tives, impulses  and  reasons,  one  predominant  butchers  the  rest 
for  its  own  gratification.  Whatever  abnormal  conditions  the 
shock  of  sorrow  had  produced  in  Jenny's  mental  life,  through 
them  all  she  remained  fully  conscious  of  her  completeness 
and  preserved  unbroken  the  importance  of  her  personality. 
She  could  not  kill  herself. 

The  days  were  very  long  now,  nor  would  she  try  to  quicken 
them  by  returning  to  the  old  life  before  she  met  Maurice.  She 
would  not  with  two  or  three  girls  pass  in  review  of  the  shops 
of  Oxford  Street  or  gossip  by  the  open  windows  of  her  club. 
In  the  dressing-room  she  would  sit  silent,  impatient  of  in- 
trusion upon  the  waste  with  which  she  had  surrounded  her- 
self. The  ballets  used  to  drag  intolerably.  She  found  no 
refuge  from  her  heart  in  dancing,  no  consolation  in  the  music 
and  color.  She  danced  listlessly,  glad  when  the  task  was  over, 
glad  when  she  came  out  of  the  theater,  and  equally  glad  to 
leave  Stacpole  Terrace  on  the  next  day.  In  bed  she  would 
lie  awake  meditating  upon  nothing;  and  when  she  slept,  her 
sleep  was  parched. 

"Buck  up,  old  girl,  whatever's  the  matter?"  Irene  would 
ask,  and  Jenny,  resentful,  would  scowl  at  the  gaucherie.  She 
longed  to  be  with  her  mother  again,  and  would  visit  Hag- 
worth  Street  more  often,  hoping  some  word  would  be  uttered 
that  would  make  it  easy  for  her  to  subdue  that  pride  which, 
however  deeply  wounded  by  Maurice,  still  battled  invincibly, 
frightening  every  other  instinct  and  emotion.  But  when  the 
words  of  welcome  came,  Jenny,  shy  of  softness,  would  carry 
ofi  existence  with  an  air,  tears  and  reconciliation  set  aside.     It 


Monotone  251 

was  not  long  before  the  rumor  of  her  love's  disaster  was  car- 
ried in  whispers  round  the  many  dressing-rooms  of  the  Orient. 
Soon  enough  Jenny  found  the  girls  staring  at  her  when  they 
thought  her  attention  was  occupied.  She  had  always  seemed 
to  them  so  invulnerable  that  her  jilting  excited  a  more  than 
usually  diffused  curiosity;  but  for  a  long  time,  though  many 
rejoiced,  no  girl  was  brave  enough  to  ask  malicious  questions, 
intruding  upon  her  solitude. 

June  came  in  with  the  best  that  June  can  give  of  cloudless 
weather,  weather  that  is  born  in  skies  of  peach-blossom,  whose 
richness  is  never  lost  in  wine-dark  nights  pressed  from  the 
day's  sweetness.  What  weather  it  would  have  been  for  the 
country!  Jenny  used  to  sit  for  hours  together  in  St.  James's 
Park,  scratching  aimlessly  upon  the  gravel  with  the  ferule  of 
her  parasol.  Men  would  stop  and  sit  beside  her,  looking  round 
the  corners  of  their  eyes  like  actors  taking  a  call.  But  she  was 
scarcely  aware  of  their  presence,  and,  when  they  spoke,  would 
look  up  vaguely  perplexed  so  that  they  muttered  apologies  and 
moved  along.  Her  thoughts  were  always  traveling  through 
the  desert  of  her  soul.  Unblessed  by  mirage,  they  traveled  stead- 
ily through  a  monotone  towards  an  horizon  of  brass.  Her 
heart  beat  dryly  and  regularly  like  the  tick  of  a  clock,  and  her 
memory  merely  recorded  time.  No  relic  of  the  past  could 
bring  a  tear ;  even  the  opal  brooch  was  worn  every  day  because 
it  happened  to  be  useful.  Once  a  letter  from  Maurice  fell 
from  her  bag  into  the  lake,  and  she  cared  no  more  for  it  than 
the  swan's  feather  beside  which  it  floated. 

July  came  in  hot  and  metallic.  Every  sunset  was  a  foundry, 
and  the  nights  were  like  smoke.  One  day  towards  the  end  of 
the  month  Jenny,  walking  down  Cranbourn  Street,  thought 
she  would  pay  a  visit  to  Lilli  Vergoe.  The  room  had  not 
changed  much  since  the  day  Jenny  joined  the  ballet.  Lilli,  in 
a  soiled  muslin  dress,  was  smoking  the  same  brand  of  ciga- 
rettes in  the  same  wicker-chair.  The  same  photographs  clung 
to  the  mirror,  or  were  stacked  on  the  mantelshelf  in  palisades. 
The  walls  were  covered  with  Mr.  Vergoe's  relics. 
17 


252  Carnival 

"Hullo,  Jenny!  So  you've  found  your  way  here  at  last. 
What's  been  wrong  with  you  lately?    You're  looking  thin," 

"It's  this  shocking  hot  weather." 

"Why,  when  you  came  here  before  and  I  said  it  was  hot, 
you  said  it  was  lovely," 

"Did  I?"  asked  Jenny  indifferently. 

"How's  your  mother?     And  dad?     And  young  May?" 

"All  right,     I'm  living  along  with  Ireen  Dale  now," 

"I  know.     Whatever  made  you  do  that?" 

"Why  shouldn't  I?" 

"I  shouldn't  call  them  your  style,"  said  Lilli  positively. 

"Ireen's  nice," 

"Yes,  she's  all  right.  But  Winnie  Dale's  dreadful.  And 
look  at  her  mother.  She's  like  an  old  charwoman.  And  that 
youngest  sister," 

"Oh,  them,  I  never  see  them." 

"You've  heard  about  me,   I  suppose?" 

"No,  what?"  asked  Jenny,  politely  inquisitive. 

"I've  turned  suffragette," 

"You  never  haven't?     Oh,  Lil,  what  a  dreadful  thing!" 

"It's  not.  It's  great.  I  used  to  think  so  myself,  but  I've 
changed  my  mind," 

"Oh,  Lilli,  I  think  it's  terrible,  A  suffragette?  But  what 
an  unnatural  lot  of  women  you  must  go  around  with." 

"They're  not,"  said  Lilli,  loud  in  defense  of  her  associates, 

"A  lot  of  Plain  Janes  and  No  Nonsense  with  their  hair  all 
screwed  back.  I  know.  And  all  walking  on  one  another's 
petticoats.  Suffragette  Sallies!  What  are  they  for?  Tell  me  that." 

"Hasn't  it  never  struck  you  there's  a  whole  heap  of  girls 
in  this  world  that's  got  nothing  to  do?" 

Lilli  spoke  sadly.  There  was  a  life's  disillusionment  in  the 
question, 

"Yes;  but  that  doesn't  say  they  should  go  making  sights 
of  themselves,  shouting  and  hollering.  Get  out!  Besides, 
what's   the  Salvation  Army  done?" 

"You  don't  understand." 


Monotone  253 

"No,  and  I  don't  want  to  understand." 

"Why  don't  you  come  round  to  our  club?  I'll  introduce 
you  to  Miss  Bailey." 

"Who's  she?" 

"She's  the  president." 

Jenny  considered  the  offer  a  moment.  Soon  she  decided 
that,  dreary  as  the  world  was,  it  would  not  be  brightened  by 
an  introduction  to  Miss  Bailey.  In  the  dressing-room  that 
night,  during  the  wait  between  the  two  ballets,  Elsie  Crauford, 
who  had  long  been  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  avenge 
Jenny's  slighting  references  to  Willie's  evening  dress,  thought 
she  would  risk  an  encounter. 

"I  didn't  know  your  Maurice  had  gone  quite  sudden,"  she 
said.     "Aren't  you  going  to  do  anything  about  it?" 

"You've  blacked  your  nose,   Elsie  Crauford." 

"Have  I?     Where?"     Elsie  had  seized  a  hand-glass. 

"Yes,  you  have,  poking  it  into  other  people's  business.  You 
curious  thing!  What  am  I  going  to  do  about  it?  Punch 
into  you,  if  you're  not  sharp." 

"He  seemed  so  fond  of  you,  too." 

"You  never  saw  him  but  once,  when  you  blew  in  with  the 
draught  in  that  flash  hat  of  yours." 

"No,  but  Madge  Wilson  told  me  you  was  absolutely  mad 
about  one  another.  It  seems  so  funny  he  should  leave  you. 
But  Madge  said  it  wouldn't  last.  She  said  you  weren't  get- 
ting a  jolly  fine  time  for  nothing.  Funny  thing,  you  always 
knew  such  a  lot  before  you  got  struck  on  a  fellow  yourself. 
What  you  weren't  going  to  do!  You  aren't  so  much  cleverer 
than  us  after  all." 

"Who  told  you?"  demanded  Jenny. 

"Madge  Wilson  did." 

"Don't  take  any  notice  of  her,"  Maudie  Chapman  advised 
at  this  point.  "You  jest  shut  up,  Elsie  Crauford.  Always 
making  mischief." 

"I'm  tired  of  Jenny  Pearl's  always  knowing  better  than 
anyone  without  being  told  off." 


2  54  Carnival 

"Told  off!    Who  by?    You    "  gasped  Jenny. 

Then  Madge  Wilson  herself  came  into  the  dressing-room. 

"Hullo,  duck,"  she  said,  surprised  by  Jenny's  apparent  re- 
entry into  society. 

"Are  you  speaking  to  me,  Madge  Wilson  ?  Because  I  don't 
want  to  talk  to  you.  A  nice  friend.  Hark  at  your  fine  friends, 
girls.    They're  the  rotters  that  take  you  off  behind  your  back." 

"Whatever's  the  matter?"  Madge  asked. 

"Yes,  you  don't  know,  do  you?  But  I  wouldn't  be  a  sneak 
like  you!  I'd  say  out  what  I  thought  and  not  care  for  any- 
one. I  wasn't  getting  a  jolly  fine  time  for  nothing?  And 
what  about  you,  Mrs.  Straightcut?  But  that's  the  way.  Girls 
you  think  are  your  friends,  girls  you  take  out  and  give  a  good 
time,  they're  the  first  to  turn  round  on  you.  I  wonder  you 
haven't  all  gone  hoarse  with  the  way  you've  talked  me  to 
pieces  these  last  weeks.  I  can  hear  you  mumbling  and  whis- 
pering in  corners.  'Have  you  heard  about  Jenny  Pearl?  Isn't 
it  shocking?  Oh,  I  do  think  it's  a  dreadful  thing.  What  a 
terrible  girl.'  God,  and  look  at  you.  Married  women!  Yes, 
and  what  have  you  married?  Why,  there  isn't  a  girl  in  this 
dressing-room  whose  husband  can  afford  to  keep  her.  Hus- 
bands!    Why,  they're  no  better  than " 

"She's  been  going  out  with  Lilli  Vergoe,"  interrupted  Elsie 
sneeringly.     "Jenny  Pearl's  turned  into  a  suffragette." 

"What  of  it?  You  and  your  six  pairs  of  gloves  that  your 
Willie  bought  you.  Well,  if  he  did,  which  I  don't  think,  he 
must  have  broke  open  the  till  to  do  it." 

Madge  Wilson's  disloyalty  effected  for  Jenny  what  nothing 
else  had  done.  It  made  the  blood  course  fast,  the  heart  beat: 
it  kindled  her  eyes  again.  That  night  in  bed,  she  thought 
of  falseness  and  treachery  and  cried  herself  to  sleep. 


Chapter  XXVI :    In  Scyros 

THE  outburst  against  feminine  treachery  had  an  effect 
upon  Jenny's  state  of  mind  bejond  the  mere  evok- 
ing of  tears.  These  were  followed  by  a  general  agi- 
tation of  her  point  of  view  necessitating  an  outlet  for  her 
revived  susceptibleness  to  emotion.  A  less  sincere  heart  would 
have  been  caught  on  the  rebound;  but  she  and  men  were  still 
mutually  unattractive.  The  consequence  of  this  renewed  activ- 
ity of  spirit,  in  the  aspect  of  its  immediate  cause,  was  para- 
doxical enough ;  for  when  Jenny  thought  she  would  try  the 
pretensions  of  suffragism,  no  clear  process  of  reasoning  helped 
her  to  such  a  resolve,  no  formulated  hostility  to  man.  What- 
ever logic  existed  in  the  decision  was  fortuitous;  nor  did  she 
at  all  perceive  any  absence  of  logic  in  throwing  in  her  lot  with 
treacherous  woman. 

Lilli  Vergoe  was  proud  of  such  a  catechumen,  and  made 
haste  to  introduce  her  to  the  tall  house  in  Mecklenburg  Square, 
whose  elm-shadowed  rooms  displayed  the  sober  glories  of  the 
Women's  Political,  Social  and  Economic  League.  Something 
about  the  house  reminded  Jenny  of  her  first  visit  to  Madame 
Aldavini's  School;  but  she  found  Miss  Bailey  less  alarming 
than  the  dancing  mistress  as,  rising  from  masses  of  letters  and 
scarlet  gladioli,  she  welcomed  the  candidate.  Miss  Bailey,  the 
president  of  the  League,  was  a  tall,  handsome  woman,  very 
unlike  Jenny's  conception  of  a  suffragette.  She  had  a  regular 
profile,  a  thin,  high-bridged  nose,  and  clearly  cut,  determined 
lips.  Her  complexion  was  pale,  her  hair  very  brown  and  rich. 
Best  of  all  Jenny  liked  her  slim  hands  and  the  voice  which, 

255 


256 


iurntva 


I 


though  marred  by  a  slight  huskiness  due  to  public  speaking,  was 
full  of  quality  and  resonance.  She  was  one  of  those  women 
who,  carrying  in  their  presence  a  fine  tranquillity  at  once  kindly 
and  ascetic,  imbue  the  onlooker  with  their  long  and  perceptive 
experience  of  humanity.  She  was  in  no  sense  homely  or 
motherly;  indeed,  she  wore  about  her  the  remoteness  of  the 
great.  Yet  whatever  in  her  general  appearance  seemed  of 
marble  was  vivified  by  clear  hazel  eyes  into  the  reality  of 
womanhood. 

"And  so  you're  going  to  join  our  club?"  inquired  Miss 
Bailey. 

Jenny,  although  she  had  intended  this  first  visit  to  be  merely 
empirical,  felt  bound  to  commit  herself  to  the  affirmative. 

"You'll  soon  know  all  about  our  objects." 

"Oh,  I've  told  her  a  lot  already.  Miss  Bailey,"  declared  LilH 
with  the  eagerness  of  the  trusted  school-girl. 

"That's  right,"  said  Miss  Bailey,  smiling.  "Come  along 
then,  and  I  will  enroll  you.  Miss " 

"Pearl,"  murmured  Jenny,  feeling  as  if  her  name  had  some- 
how slipped  down  and  escaped  sideways  through  her  neck. 
Then  with  an  effort  clearing  her  throat,  she  added,  "Jenny 
Pearl,"  blushing  furiously  at  the  confession  of  identity. 

"Your  address?" 

"Better  say  17  Hagworth  Street,  Islington.  Only  I'm  not 
living  there  just  now.  Now  I'm  living  43  Stacpole  Terrace, 
Camden  Town." 

"Have  you  a  profession?" 

"I'm  on   the  stage." 

"What  a  splendid  profession,  too — for  a  woman.  Don't 
you  think  so?" 

Jenny  stared  at  this  commendation  of  a  state  of  life  she  had 
always  imagined  was  distasteful  to  people  like  Miss  Bailey. 

"I  don't  know  much  about  splendid,  but  I  suppose  it's  all 
right,"  she  agreed  at  last. 

"Indeed  It  is.     Are  you  at  the  Orient  also?" 

"Yes,  you  know,  in  the  ballet,"  said  Jenny  very  quickly,  so 


In  Scyros  257 

that  the  president  might  not  think  she  was  trying  to  push  her- 
self unduly. 

"I  don't  believe  there's  anything  that  gives  more  pleasure 
than  good  dancing.  Dancing  ought  to  be  the  expression  of 
life's  joy,"  said  the  older  woman,  gazing  at  the  pigeon-holes 
full  of  docketed  files,  at  the  bookshelves  stuffed  with  dry  vol- 
umes of  Ethics  and  Politics  and  Economics,  as  if  half  regret- 
ting she,  too,  was  not  in  the  Orient  Ballet.  "Dancing  is  the 
oldest  art,"  she  continued.  "I  like  to  think  they  danced  the 
spring  in  long  before  calendars  were  made.  Your  subscrip- 
tion is  half  a  crown  a  year." 

Jenny  produced  the  coin  from  her  bag;  and  it  said  much  for 
Miss  Bailey's  personality  that  the  new  member  to  adorn  the 
action  did  not  wink  over  her  shoulder  at  Lilli. 

"Thank  you.  Here's  the  badge.  It's  copied  from  an  old 
Athenian  medal.  This  is  Pallas  Athene,  the  Goddess  of  Wis- 
dom." 

"She  isn't  much  to  look  at,  is  she?"  commented  Jenny. 

"My  dear  child,  that's  the  owl." 

Jenny  turned  the  medal  over  and  contemplated  the  armed 
head.  Then  she  put  it  carefully  away  in  her  purse,  wondering 
if  the  badge  would  bring  her  luck. 

"Now,  I  shall  let  Lilli  show  you  round  the  club  rooms,  for 
I'm  very  busy  this  afternoon,"  said  Miss  Bailey  in  gentle  dis- 
missal. 

The  two  girls  left  the  study  and  set  out  to  explore  the  rest 
of  the  house.  Over  the  mantlepiece  of  the  principal  room 
Jenny  saw  Mona  Lisa  and  drew  back  so  quickly  that  she  trod 
on   Lilli's  foot. 

"I'm  not  going  in  there,"  she  said. 

"Why  not?    It's  a  nice  room." 

"I'm  not  going  in.  I  don't  want  to,"  she  repeated,  without 
any  explanation  of  her  whim. 

"All  right.     Let's  go  downstairs.    We  can  have  tea." 

It  was  a  fine  afternoon  towards  the  end  of  July,  so  the  tea- 
room was  empty.     Jenny  looked  cautiously  at  all  the  pictures 


258 


Carnival 


but  none  of  them  conjured  up  the  past.  There  was  a  large 
photograph  of  the  beautiful  sad  head  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  but 
Jenny  did  not  bother  to  read  that  it  came  originally  from 
the  church  of  St.  Maurice  in  Orleans.  There  was  a  number 
of  somewhat  dreary  engravings  of  famous  pioneers  of  femi- 
nism like  Mary  Wolstonecraft,  whose  faces,  she  thought,  would 
look  better  turned  round  to  the  wall.  Below  these  hung  sev- 
eral statistical  maps  showing  the  density  of  population  in  vari- 
ous London  slums,  with  black  splodges  for  criminal  districts. i 
Most  of  the  furniture  was  of  green  fumed  oak  fretted  with 
hearts,  and  the  crockery  that  lived  dustily  on  a  shelf  following 
the  line  of  the  frieze  came  from  Hanley  disguised  in  Flemish 
or  Breton  patterns,  whose  studied  irregularity  of  design  and 
roughness  of  workmanship  was  symbolic  of  much.  In  order, 
apparently,  to  accentuate  the  flimsiness  of  the  green  fumed 
oak,  there  were  several  mid-Victorian  settees  that,  having  faded 
in  back  rooms  of  Wimpole  Street  and  Portman  Square,  were 
now  exposed  round  the  sides  of  their  new  abode  in  a  succession 
of  hillocks.  On  the  wall  by  the  door  hung  a  framed  tariff, 
on  which  poached  eggs  in  every  permutation  of  number  and 
combination  of  additional  delicacies  figured  most  prominently. 
Here  and  there  on  tables  not  occupied  with  green  teacups  were 
scattered  pamphlets,  journals,  and  the  literary  propaganda  of 
the  feminine  movement.  The  general  atmosphere  of  the  room 
was  permeated  by  an  odor  of  damp  toast  and  the  stale  fumes 
of  acthma  cigarettes. 

"What  an  unnatural  smell,"  murmured  Jenny. 

"It's  those  asthma  cigarettes,"  Lilli  explained.  "One  of  the 
members  has  got  it  very  bad." 

Jenny  was  glad  to  escape  very  soon  after  tea,  and  told  her 
friend  a  second  visit  to  Mecklenburg  Square  was  not  to  be 
done. 

"I  used  to  think  they  was  nice  houses  when  I  passed  by  the 
other  side  in  that  green  'bus  going  to  Covent  Garden,  but  I 
think  they're  very  stuffy,  and  what  wall-paper!  More  like 
blotting-paper." 


In  Scyros  259 


However,  one  Saturday  evening  in  August,  as  Jenny  was 
leaving  the  theater,  Lilli  begged  her  to  come  and  hear  Miss 
Ragstead  speak  on  the  general  aims  of  the  movement,  with 
particular  attention  to  a  proposed  demonstration  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  re-opening  of  Parliament. 

"When's  the  old  crow  going  to  speak?"  Jenny  inquired. 

"To-morrow   evening," 

"On  a  Sunday?" 

"Yes." 

So,  because  there  was  nothing  else  to  do  and  because  now- 
adays Sunday  was  a  long  grim  moping,  a  procession  of  pretty 
hours  irrevocable,  Jenny  promised  to  accompany  her  friend. 

It  was  a  wet  evening,  and  Bloomsbury  seemed  the  wettest 
place  in  London  as  the  two  girls  turned  into  the  sparse  lamp- 
light of  IVIecklenburg  Square  and  hurried  along  under  the  dank, 
fast-fading  planes  and  elms.  Inside  the  house,  however,  there 
was  an  air  of  energetic  jollity  owing  to  the  arrival  of  several 
girl  students  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  who  stumped  in 
and  out  of  the  rooms,  greeting  each  other  with  tales  of  Swiss 
mountains  and  comparisons  of  industry.  In  their  strong,  low- 
heeled  boots  they  stumped  about  consumed  by  holiday  sunshine 
and  the  acquisition  of  facts.  With  friendly  smiles  and  fresh 
complexions,  they  talked  enthusiastically  to  several  young  men, 
whose  Adam's  apples  raced  up  and  down  their  long  necks, 
giving  them  the  appearance  of  chickens  swallowing  maize  very 
quickly. 

"Talk  about  funny  turns,"  whispered  Jenny. 

"They're  all  very  clever,"  Miss  Vergoe  apologized,  as  she 
steered  her  intolerant  friend  past  the  group. 

"Yes,  I  should  say  they  ought  to  be  clever,  too.  They  look 
as  though  they  were  pecking  each  other's  brains  out." 

Miss  Bailey  encountered  them  here. 

"Why,  this  is  capital,"  she  said.  "Miss  Ragstead  won't  be 
long  now.  Let  me  introduce  a  dear  young  friend  of  mine, 
Miss  Worrill." 

"How  are  you?"  Miss  Worrill  asked  heartily. 


2  6o  Carnival 

She  was  a  pleasant  girl  dressed  in  Harris  tweed  strongly 
odorous  from  the  rain.  Her  hair  might  have  been  arranged 
to  set  off  her  features  to  greater  advantage,  and  it  was  a  pity 
her  complexion  was  spoilt  by  a  network  of  tiny  purple  veins 
which  always  attracted  the  concentration  of  those  who  talked 
to  her.    Jenny  began  to  count  them  at  once. 

"Come  to  hear  Connie  Ragstead?"  asked  Miss  Worrill. 
"Jolly  good  crowd  for  August,"  she  went  on,  throwing  a  satis- 
fied glance  round  the  room.     "Have  you  ever  heard  her?" 

"No,"  Jenny  replied,  wondering  why  something  in  this  girl's 
way  of  speaking  reminded  her  of  Maurice. 

"You'll  like  her  most  awfully.  I  met  her  once  at  the  Lady 
Maggie  'Gaudy.'  " 

"At  the  what?" 

"Our  Gaude  at  Lady  Margaret's.  Festive  occasion  and  all 
that.  I  say,  do  you  play  hockey?  I'm  getting  up  a  team  to 
play  at  Wembley  this  winter." 

"My  friend  and  I  are  too  busy,"  Miss  Vergoe  explained, 
looking  nervously  round  at  Jenny  to  see  how  she  took  the  sug- 
gestion. 

"But  one  can  always  find  time  for  'ecker.'  " 

"I  could  find  time  to  fly  kites.  Only  I  don't  want  to,"  said 
Jenny  dangerously.     "You  see,  I'm  on  the  stage." 

"I'm  frightfully  keen  on  the  stage,"  Miss  Worrill  volun- 
teered. "I  believe  it  could  be  such  a  force.  I  thought  of 
acting  myself  once — you  know,  in  real  plays,  not  musical  com- 
edy, of  course.  A  friend  of  mine  was  in  the  'Ecclesiasuzae* 
at  the  Afternoon  Theater.  She  wore  a  rather  jolly  vermilion 
tunic  and  had  bare  legs.     Absolutely  realistic." 

Jenny  now  began  to  giggle,  and  whispered  "Cocoanut  knees" 
to  Lilli,  who,  notwithstanding  the  importance  of  the  occasion, 
also  began  to  giggle.  So  Miss  Worrill,  presumably  shy  of  their 
want  of  sensibility,  retired. 

Soon,  when  the  rumor  of  the  speaker's  arrival  ran  round 
the  assemblage,  a  general  move  was  made  in  the  direction  of 
the  large  room  on  the  first  floor.    Jenny,  as  she  entered  with 


In  Scyros  261 

the  stream,  saw  Leonardo's  sinister  portrait  and  tried  to  re- 
treat ;  but  there  were  too  many  eager  listeners  in  the  way,  and 
she  had  to  sit  down  and  prepare  to  endure  the  damnable  smile 
of  La  Gioconda  that  seemed  directed  to  the  very  corner 
where  she  was  sitting. 

During  the  earlier  part  of  Miss  Ragstead's  address,  Jenny's 
attention  was  chiefly  occupied  by  her  neighbors.  She  thought 
that  never  before  was  such  a  collection  of  freaks  gathered  to- 
gether. Close  beside  her,  dressed  in  a  green  djibbeh  embroid- 
ered with  daisies  of  terra-cotta  silk,  was  a  tallowy  woman 
who  from  time  to  time  let  several  books  slide  from  her  lap  on 
to  the  floor — a  piece  of  carelessness  which  always  provoked 
the  audience  to  a  lullaby  of  protest.  In  front  of  this  lady 
were  two  Hindu  students  with  flowing  orange  ties;  and  just 
beyond  her,  in  black  velvet,  was  a  tall  woman  with  a  flat, 
pallid  face,  who  gnawed  alternately  her  nails  and  the  extin- 
guished end  of  a  cigarette.  Then  came  a  group  of  girl  stu- 
dents, all  very  much  alike,  all  full  of  cocoa  and  the  binomial 
theorem;  while  the  rest  of  the  audience  was  made  up  of  typists, 
clerks,  civil  servants,  copper- workers,  palmists,  nurses,  Ameri- 
cans and  poets,  all  lending  their  ears  to  the  speaker's  words  as  in 
the  Zoological  Gardens  elephants,  swaying  gently,  offer  their 
trunks  for  buns.  Gradually,  however,  from  this  hotchpotch 
of  types,  the  personality  of  the  speaker  detached  itself  and  was 
able  to  impress  Jenny's  attention.  Gradually,  as  she  grew 
tired  of  watching  the  audience,  she  began  to  watch  Miss  Rag- 
stead  and,  after  a  critical  appreciation  of  her  countenance,  to 
make  an  attempt  to  comprehend  the  intention  of  the  discourse. 

Miss  Constance  Ragstead  was  a  woman  of  about  forty,  pos- 
sessing much  of  the  remote  and  chastened  beauty  that  was 
evident  in  Miss  Bailey.  She,  too,  was  pale,  not  unhealthily,  but 
with  the  impression  of  having  lived  long  in  a  rarefied  atmos- 
phere. Virginity  has  its  fires,  and  Miss  Ragstead  was  an  in- 
heritor of  the  spirit  which  animated  Saint  Theresa  and  Mary 
Magdalene  of  Pazzi.  Her  social  schemes  were  crowned  with 
aureoles,  her  plans  were  lapped  by  tenuous  gold  flames.     She 


262  Carnival 

was  a  mystic  of  humanity,  one  who  from  the  contemplation  of 
mortality  in  its  individual  aspirations,  had  arrived  at  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  man  as  a  perfect  idea  and  was  able  from 
his  virtues  to  create  her  theogony.  This  woman's  presence 
implied  the  purification  of  ceaseless  effort.  Activity  as  ex- 
pressed by  her  was  a  sacrament.  It  conveyed  the  isolated 
solemnity  of  a  force  that  does  not  depend  for  its  reality  on 
human  conceptions  or  practical  altruism.  Her  activity  was 
a  moral  radium  never  consumed  by  the  expenditure  of  its  en- 
ergy; it  was  dynamic  whether  it  effected  little  or  much.  When 
she  recalled  the  factory  in  which  for  a  year  she  had  worked 
as  a  hand,  the  enterprise  was  hallowed  with  the  romance  of  a 
saint's  pilgrimage.  When  she  spoke  of  her  green  garden, 
where  June  had  healed  the  hearts  of  many  young  women,  she 
seemed  like  an  eremite  in  whose  consolation  was  absolute  peace. 
Her  voice  v/as  modulated  with  those  half-tones  that  thrushes 
ring  upon  the  evening  air ;  and  since  they  were  produced  sud- 
denly with  no  hint  of  premeditation,  the  feeblest  listener  was 
at  some  time  inevitably  waylaid. 

It  was  not  astonishing  Jenny  should  find  herself  caught  in 
the  melodious  twilight  of  the  oration,  should  find  that  the 
craning  audience  was  less  important  than  the  speaker.  She 
came  to  believe  that  Mona  Lisa's  smile  was  kindlier.  She 
began  to  take  in  some  of  the  rhetoric  of  the  per- 
oration : 

"I  wish  I  could  persuade  you  that,  if  our  cause  is  a  worthy 
cause,  it  must  exist  and  endure  through  the  sanity  of  its  ad- 
herents. It  must  never  depend  upon  the  trivial  eccentricities 
of  a  few.  I  want  to  see  the  average  woman  fired  with  zeal 
to  make  the  best  of  herself.  I  do  not  want  us  to  be  con- 
temptuously put  aside  as  exceptions.  Nor  am  I  anxious  to 
recruit  our  strength  from  the  discontented,  the  disappointed 
and  the  disillusioned.  Let  us  do  away  with  the  reproach 
that  we  voice  a  minority's  opinion.  Let  us  preserve  the 
grace  and  magic  of  womanhood,  so  that  with  the  spiritual 
power  of  virginity,  the  physical  grandeur  of  motherhood,  in 


In  Scyros  263 

a  devoted  phalanx  huge  as  the  army  of  Darius,  we  may  achieve 
our  purpose." 

Here  the  speaker  paused  and,  as  if  afraid  she  might  be 
deemed  to  offer  counsels  of  pusillanimity,  broke  forth  more 
passionately: 

"But  because  I  wish  to  see  our  ambition  succeed  through 
the  aggregate  of  dignified  opinion,  I  do  not  want  to  discredit 
or  seek  to  dishearten  the  advance-guard.  Let  us  who  represent 
the  van  of  an  army  so  mighty  as  to  be  mute  and  inexpressive, 
let  us,  not  thinking  ourselves  martyrs  nor  displaying  like  Ama- 
zons our  severed  breasts,  let  us  resolve  to  endure  ignominy  and 
contempt,  slander,  disgrace  and  imprisonment.  Some  day  men 
will  speak  well  of  us;  some  day  the  shrieking  sisterhood  will 
be  forgotten,  and  those  leaders  of  women  whom  to-day  we 
alone  venerate,  will  be  venerated  by  all.  Pay  no  heed  to  that 
subtle  propaganda  of  passivity.  Reject  the  lily-white  coun- 
sels of  moderation.  Remember  that  without  visible  audible 
agitation  this  phlegmatic  people  cannot  be  roused.  Therefore 
I  call  on  you  who  murmur  your  agreement  to  join  the  great 
march  on  Westminster.  I  implore  you  to  be  brave,  to  despise 
calumny,  to  be  careless  of  abuse  and,  because  you  believe  you 
are  in  the  right,  to  alarm  once  more  this  blind  and  stolid  mass 
of  public  opinion  with  the  contingency  of  your  ultimate  tri- 
umph." 

The  speaker  sat  down,  lost  in  the  haze  which  shrouds  a 
room  full  of  people  deeply  wrought  by  eloquence  and  emo- 
tion. There  was  a  moment's  silence  and  then,  after  prolonged 
applause,  the  audience  began  to  babble. 

Jenny  sat  still.  She  had  not  listened  to  the  reasoned  argu- 
ments and  statistical  illustrations  of  the  main  portion  of  the 
speech,  nor  had  she  properly  comprehended  the  peroration. 
Yet  she  was  charged  with  resolves,  primed  with  determination 
and  surgingly  impelled  to  some  sort  of  action.  She  was  the 
microcosm  of  a  mob's  awakening  to  the  clarion  of  an  orator. 
A  cataract  of  formless  actions  was  thundering  through  her 
mind ;  the  dam  of  indifference  had  been  burst  by  mere  weight 


264 


Carnival 


of  rhetoric,  that  powerful  dam  proof  against  the  tampering  of 
logic.  Perhaps  she  was  passing  through  the  psychical  crisis  of 
conversion.  Perhaps,  in  her  dead  emotional  state,  anything  that 
aroused  her  slightly  would  have  aroused  her  violently.  No 
doubt  a  deep-voiced  bishop  could  have  secured  a  similar  result, 
had  she  been  leaning  against  the  cold  stone  of  a  cathedral 
rather  than  the  gray  flock  wall-paper  of  Mecklenburg  Square. 

"I'd  like  to  talk  to  her,"  she  told  Lilli. 

"She  doesn't  half  stir  you  up,  eh?" 

"I  don't  know  so  much  about  stirring  up,  Mrs.  Pudding," 
said  Jenny,  unwilling  to  admit  any  renascence  of  sensibility. 
"But  I  think  she's  nice.  I'd  like  to  see  what  sort  she'd  be  to 
talk  to  quiet." 

No  opportunity  for  a  conversation  with  Miss  Ragstead  pre- 
sented itself  that  evening;  but  Lilli,  somewhat  elated  by  the 
capture  of  Jenny,  told  Miss  Bailey  of  her  admiration;  and  the 
president,  who  had  been  attracted  to  the  neophyte,  promised 
to  arrange  a  meeting.  Lilli  knew  better  than  to  breathe  a 
word  to  Jenny  of  any  plan,  and  merely  threw  out  a  casual 
suggestion  to  take  tea  at  the  club. 

So  without  any  premonitory  shyness  Jenny  found  herself 
talking  quite  easily  in  a  corner  of  the  tea-room  to  Miss  Rag- 
stead,  who  was  not  merely  persuasive  with  assemblages,  but 
also  acutely  sympathetic  with  individuals. 

"But  I  don't  want  a  vote,"  Jenny  was  saying.  "I  shouldn't 
know  what  to  do  with  it.  I  don't  see  any  use  in  it.  My 
father's  got  one  and  it's  a  regular  nuisance.  It  keeps  him  out 
late  every  night." 

"My  dear,  you  may  not  want  a  vote,"  said  Miss  Ragstead, 
"but  I  do,  and  I  want  the  help  of  girls  like  you  to  get  it.  I 
want  to  represent  you.  As  things  are  now,  you  have  no  say 
in  the  government  of  yourself.  Tell  me,  now,  Jenny — I'm 
going  to  call  you  Jenny  straight  away — you  wouldn't  like  to 
be  at  the  mercy  of  one  man,  would  you?" 

"But  I  wouldn't.  Not  me,"  said  Jenny.  Yet  somehow  she 
spoke  not  quite  so  bravely  as  once,  and  even  as  the  assertion 


In  Scyros  265 

was  made,  her  heart  throbbed  to  a  memory  of  Maurice.  After 
all,  she  had  been  at  the  mercy  of  one  man. 

"Of  course  you  wouldn't,"  Miss  Ragstead  went  on.  "Well, 
we  women  who  want  the  vote  have  the  same  feeling.  We 
don't  like  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  men.  I  suppose  you'd  be  horri- 
fied  if  I  asked  you  to  join  our  demonstration   in  October?" 

"What,  walk  in  procession?"  Jenny  gasped. 

"Yes,  it's  not  so  very  dreadful.  Who  would  object?  Your 
mother?" 

"She'd  make  fun  of  it,  but  that  wouldn't  matter.  She'd 
make  everyone  laugh  to  hear  her  telling  about  me  in  a  pro- 
cession." 

Jenny  remembered  how  her  mother  had  teased  her  father 
when  she  saw  him  supporting  a  banner  of  the  Order  of  For- 
esters on  the  occasion  of  a  beanfast  at  Clacton. 

"Well,  your  lover?" 

Jenny  looked  sharply  at  Miss  Ragstead  to  ascertain  if  she 
were  laughing.  The  word  sent  such  a  pang  through  her.  It 
was  a  favorite  word  of  Maurice. 

"I  haven't  got  one,"  she  coldly  answered. 

"No?"  said  Miss  Ragstead,  gently  skeptical.  "I  can  hardly 
believe  that,  you  know,  for  you  surely  must  be  a  most  attrac- 
tive girl." 

"I  did  have  one,"  said  Jenny,  surprised  out  of  her  reserve. 
"Only  we  just  ended  it  all  of  a  sudden." 

"My  dear,"  said  Miss  Ragstead  softly,  "I  don't  think  you're 
a  very  happy  little  girl.  I'm  sure  you're  not.  Won't  you  tell 
me  about  it?" 

"There's  nothing  to  tell.  Men  are  rotters,  that's  all.  If  I 
thought  I  could  pay  them  out  by  being  a  suffragette,  I'd  be  a 
suffragette." 

Jenny  spoke  with  decision,  pointing  the  avowal  by  flinging 
her  cigarette  into  the  grate. 

"Yes,  I  know  that's  a  reason  with  some.  But  I  don't  think 
that  revenge  is  the  best  of  reasons,  somehow.  I  would  rather 
you  were  convinced  that  the  movement  is  right." 


266  Carnival 

"If  it  annoys  men,  it  must  be  right,"  Jenny  argued.  "Only 
T  don't  think  it  does.    I  think  they  just  laugh." 

"I  see  you're  in  a  turbulent  state  of  mind,"  Miss  Ragstead 
observed.  "And  I'm  glad  in  a  way,  because  it  proves  that 
you  have  temperament  and  character.  You  ought  to  resent  a 
wrong.  Of  course,  I  know  you'll  disagree  with  me  when  I 
tell  you  that  you're  too  young  to  be  permanently  injured  by 
any  man — and,  I  think  I  might  add,  too  proud." 

"Yes,  I  am  most  shocking  proud,"  Jenny  admitted,  looking 
down  on  the  floor  and,  as  it  were,  regarding  her  character  in- 
carnate before  her. 

"But  it's  just  these  problems  of  behavior  under  difficulties 
that  our  club  wants  to  solve.  I'd  like  to  put  you  on  the  road 
to  express  )'ourself  and  your  ambitions  without  the  necessity  of 
— say  marriage  for  convenience.  You're  a  dancer,  aren't 
you?" 

"Um,  a  ballet  girl,"  said  Jenny  as  usual,  careful  not  to  pre- 
sume the  false  grandeur  of  an  isolated  stellar  existence. 

"Are  you  keen  on  your  dancing?" 

"I  was  once.  When  I  began.  Only  they  crush  you  at  the 
Orient.     Girls  there  hate  to  see  you  get  on.     I'm  sick  of  it." 

"I  wonder,"  said  Miss  Ragstead  half  to  herself;  "I  wonder 
if  active  work  for  the  cause  would  give  you  a  new  zest  for  life. 
It  might.  You  feel  all  upside  down  just  now,  don't 
you?" 

"I  feel  as  if  nothing  didn't  matter.  Not  aw^rthing,"  replied 
Jenny  decidedly. 

"That's  terrible  for  a  girl  of  your  age.  You  can't  be  more 
than  eighteen  or  nineteen." 

"Twenty-one  in  October." 

"So  much  as  that?  Yes" — the  older  woman  continued  after 
a  reflective  pause — "yes,  I  believe  you  want  some  spur,  some 
excitement  quite  outside  your  ordinary  experience.  You  know 
I  am  a  doctor,  so  without  impertinence  I  can  fairly  prescribe 
for  you." 

"Well,  what  have  I  got  to  do?"  Jenny  asked.     She  was 


In  Scyros  267 


almost  fascinated  by  this  lady  with  her  cool  hands  and  deep- 
set,   passionate  eyes. 

"I  wish  I  could  invite  you  to  spend  some  time  with  me 
in  Somerset,  but  I'm  too  busy  now  for  a  holiday.  I  feel  rather 
uncertain  whether,  after  all,  to  advise  you  to  plunge  into  the 
excitement  of  this  demonstration.  And  yet  I'm  sure  it  would 
be  good  for  you.  Dear  child,  I  hope  I'm  not  giving  bad  ad- 
vice," said  Miss  Ragstead  earnestly  as  she  leaned  forward  and 
took  hold  of  Jenny's  hand. 

So  it  came  about  that  Jenny  was  enrolled  in  the  ranks  of 
the  great  demonstration  that  was  to  impress  the  autumnal  ses- 
sion of  Parliament.  She  kept  very  quiet  about  her  intention 
and  no  one,  except  Lilli,  knew  anything  about  it.  The  worst 
preliminary  was  the  purple,  green  and  white  sash  which  con- 
tained her  unlucky  color.  Indeed,  at  first  she  could  hardly  be 
persuaded  to  put  it  across  her  shoulders.  But  when  the  boom- 
ing of  the  big  drum  marked  the  beat,  she  felt  aflame  with 
nervous  expectation  and  never  bothered  about  the  sash  or  the 
chance  of  casual  recognition. 

The  rhythm  of  the  march,  the  crashing  of  the  band,  the  lilt- 
ing motion,  the  unreality  of  the  crowds  gaping  on  the  pave- 
ments intoxicated  her,  and  she  went  swinging  on  to  the  tune 
in  a  dream  of  excitement.  In  the  narrower  streets  the  music 
blazed  with  sound  and  fury  of  determination,  urging  them  on, 
inspiring  them  with  indomitable  energy,  inexorable  progress. 
The  tops  of  the  houses  here  seemed  to  converge,  blotting  out 
the  sky;  and  Jenny  felt  that  she  was  stationary,  while  they 
moved  on  like  the  landscape  of  a  cinematograph.  As  the 
procession  swept  into  Trafalgar  Square  with  its  great  open 
space  of  London  sky,  the  music  unconfined  achieved  a  more 
poignant  appeal  and  infected  the  mass  of  arduous  women  with 
sentiment,  making  their  temper  the  more  dangerous.  The 
procession  became  a  pilgrimage  to  some  abstract  nobility,  to  no 
set  place.  Jenny  was  now  bewitched  by  the  steady  motion 
into  an  almost  complete  unconsciousness  of  the  gaping  sight- 
seers, thought  of  them,  if  she  thought  of  them  at  all,  as  figures 
18 


2  68  Carnival 

in  a  fair-booth  to  be  knocked  carelessly  backwards  as  she  passed, 
more  vital  than  they  were  with  their  painted  grins. 

In  Whitehall  the  air  was  again  charged  with  anger.  The 
tall  banners  far  ahead  floated  on  airs  of  victory.  The  mounted 
women  rode  like  conquerors.  Then  for  an  instant  as  Jenny 
heard  from  one  of  the  pavement-watchers  a  coarse  and  mock- 
ing comment  on  the  demonstration,  she  thought  the  whole 
business  mere  matter  for  ridicule  and  recalled  the  circus  pro- 
cessions that  flaunted  through  towns  on  sunny  seaside  holiday 
mornings  long  ago.  Soon,  however,  the  tune  reestablished  it- 
self in  her  brain,  and  once  more  she  swept  on  to  the  noble 
achievement.  The  houses  grew  taller  than  ever;  faded  into 
remote  mists;  quaked  and  shimmered  as  if  to  a  fall.  Far 
down  the  line  above  the  brass  and  drums  was  a  sound  of 
screaming,  a  dull  mutter  of  revolution,  a  wave  of  execration 
and  encouragement.  The  procession  stopped  dead:  the  music 
ceased  in  discords.  Two  or  three  of  the  women  fainted.  The 
crowd  on  either  side  suddenly  came  to  life  and  pressed  forward 
with  hot,  inquisitive  breath.  Somewhere,  a  long  way  off,  a 
leader  shrieked,  'Torward."  Policemen  were  conjured  from 
the  quivering  throng.  Somebody  tore  off  Jenny's  sash.  Some- 
body trod  on  her  foot.  The  confusion  increased.  Nothing 
was  left  of  any  procession:  everyone  was  pushing,  yelling, 
groaning,  scratching,  struggling  in  a  wreck  of  passions.  Jenny 
was  cut  off  from  the  disorganized  main  body,  was  helpless  in 
a  mob  of  men.  The  police  were  behaving  with  that  magnifi- 
cent want  of  discrimination  which  characterizes  their  behavior 
in  a  crisis  of  disorder.  Their  tactics  were  justified  by  success, 
and  as  they  would  rely  on  mutual  support  in  the  official  ac- 
count of  the  riot,  individual  idiocy  would  escape  censure. 

In  so  far  as  Jenny  was  pushing  her  way  out  of  the  mob, 
was  seeking  desperately  to  gain  the  sanctuary  of  a  side  street 
and  forever  escape  from  feminine  demonstrations,  she  was 
acting  in  a  way  likely  to  cause  a  breach  of  the  peace.  So  it 
was  not  surprising  that  a  young  plough-boy  lately  invested 
with  an  uniform  should  feel  impelled  to  arrest  her. 


In  Scyros  269 

"Now  then,  you  come  along  of  me,"  commanded  the  yokel, 
as  a  blush  ebbed  and  flowed  upon  his  cheeks  glistening  with 
down  and  perspiration. 

"Who  are  you  pushing,  you?"  cried  Jenny,  enraged  to  find 
her  arm  in  the  tight  grasp  of  a  podgy,  freckled  hand. 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself,"  he  declared. 

"Don't  you  speak  to  me,  you.  Why,  what  are  you?  Invisi- 
ble blue  when  you're  wanted.  Let  go  of  me.  I  won't  be  held. 
I  wasn't  doing  anything.  I  was  going  home.  Let 
go." 

The  young  policeman,  disinclined  to  risk  the  adventure 
single-handed,  looked  around  for  a  fellow-constable  to  assist  at 
the  conveyance  of  Jenny  to  the  station.  All  his  companions, 
however,  seemed  busily  engaged  tugging  at  recalcitrant  women ; 
and  instead  of  being  congratulated  on  his  first  arrest,  a  well- 
groomed  man,  white  with  rage,  shouted :  "Look  here,  you 
blackguard,  I've  got  your  number  and  I'll  have  your  coat  ofif 
for  this.  This  lady  was  doing  absolutely  nothing  but  trying 
to  escape  from  the  crowd." 

The  young  policeman  looked  about  him  once  more  with 
watery,  unintelligent  eyes.  He  was  hoping  that  someone  would 
arrest  the  well-groomed  man;  but  as  nobody  did,  and  as  the 
latter  was  not  unlike  the  Captain  of  the  Volunteer  Company 
from  whose  ranks  he  had  climbed  into  the  force,  the  novice 
released  his  grip  of  Jenny  and  said : 

"Now,  you  be  of?.    You  won't  get  another  chance." 

"No,  you  turnip-headed  bumpkin,"  shouted  the  well-groomed 
man,  "nor  will  you,  when  I've  had  five  minutes  at  Scotland 
Yard.  I'm  going  to  watch  you,  my  friend.  You're  not  fit  for 
a  position  of  responsibility." 

Jenny,  free  of  the  crowd,  walked  through  the  peace  of 
Whitehall  Court  and  promised  herself  that  never  again  would 
she  have  anything  to  do  with  suffragettes. 

"Soppy  fools,"  she  thought,  "they  can't  do  nothing.  They 
can  only  jabber,  jabber."  She  reproached  herself  for  imagin- 
ing it  was  possible  to  consummate  a  revenge  on  man  by  such 


2  7  o  Carnival 

means.  She  had  effected  nothing  but  the  exposure  of  her 
person  to  the  freckled  paws  of  a  policeman. 

"Not  again,"  said  Jenny  to  herself,  "not  ever  again  will  I 
be  such  a  silly,  soppy  idiot." 

In  the  distance  she  could  still  hear  the  shouting  of  the 
riot;  but  as  she  drew  nearer  to  Charing  Cross  railway  sta- 
tion, the  noise  of  trains  took  its  place. 


Chapter  XXVII:    ^artette 

SUFFRAGISM  viewed  in  retrospect  was  shoddy  em- 
broidery for  the  vie  interieure  of  Jenny.  There  was 
no  physical  exhilaration  for  her  in  wrestling  with 
policemen,  and  the  intellectual  excitement  of  controversy  would 
never  be  likely  to  appeal  to  a  mind  naturally  unfitted  for  argu- 
ment. There  wr.s,  too,  about  her  view  of  the  whole  business 
something  of  Myrrhine's  contempt.  She  may  have  been  in  an 
abnormal  condition  of  acute  hostility  to  the  opposite  sex;  but 
as  soon  as  she  found  herself  in  a  society  whose  antipathy 
towards  men  seemed  to  be  founded  on  inability  to  attract  the 
hated  male,  all  her  common  sense  cried  out  against  commit- 
ting herself  to  such  a  devil-driven  attitude.  She  felt  that  some- 
thing must  be  wrong  with  so  obviously  an  ineffective  aggre- 
gation of  Plain  Janes.  She  was  not  concerned  with  that  un- 
provided-for  surplus  of  feminine  population.  She  had  no  ac- 
quaintance with  that  asceticism  produced  by  devotion  to  the 
intellect.  She  perceived,  though  not  consciously,  the  inherent 
weakness  of  the  whole  movement  in  its  failure  to  supply  an 
emotional  substitute  for  more  elemental   passions. 

Jenny  was  shrewd  enough  to  understand  that  leaders  like 
Miss  Bailey  and  Miss  Ragstead  were  logically  justified  in 
demanding  a  vote.  She  could  understand  that  they  would  be 
able  to  use  it  to  some  purpose;  but  at  the  same  time  she  real- 
ized that  to  the  majority  of  women  a  vote  would  be  merely 
an  encumbrance.  Jenny  also  saw  through  the  folly  of  agi- 
tation that  must  depend  for  success  on  equality  of  physique, 
and  half  divined  that  the  prime  cause  of  such  extravagance  lay 

:7i 


272  Carnival 

in  the  needs  of  feminine  self-expression.  Nuns  are  wedded  to 
Christ;  suffragists,  with  the  notable  exceptions  of  those  capable 
of  sustaining  an  intellectual  predominance,  must  remain  spirit- 
ual old  maids.  As  Jenny  asked,  "What  do  they  all  want?" 
Very  soon  the  inhabitants  of  Mecklenburg  Square  became  as 
unreal  as  unicorns,  and  the  whole  episode  acquired  the  reputa- 
tion of  an  interlude  of  unaccountable  madness  from  the  mem- 
ory of  which  the  figure  of  Miss  Ragstead  stood  out  cool  and 
tranquil  and  profoundly  sane.  Jenny  would  in  a  way  have 
been  glad  to  meet  her  again;  but  she  was  too  shy  to  suggest 
meeting  outside  the  domain  of  the  Women's  Political,  Social 
and  Economic  League,  and  their  auspices  were  now  unimag- 
inable. In  order  to  avoid  the  whole  subject,  Jenny  began  to 
avoid  Lilli  Vergoe;  and  very  soon,  partly  owing  to  the  oppor- 
tunities of  propinquity,  partly  owing  to  a  renewed  desire  for  it, 
her  friendship  with  Irene  Dale  was  reconstituted  on  a  firmer 
basis  than  before. 

Six  months  had  now  elapsed  since  that  desolate  first  of 
May.  The  ballet  of  Cupid  was  taken  off  about  the  same  time, 
and  the  occupation  of  rehearsing  for  a  new  one  had  steered 
Jenny  through  the  weeks  immediately  following  Maurice's 
defection.  She  was  now  dancing  in  a  third  ballet  in  which 
she  took  so  little  interest  that  no  account  of  it  is  necessary. 
The  pangs  of  outraged  love  were  drugged  to  painlessness  by 
time.  From  a  superficial  standpoint  the  wounds  were  healed, 
that  is,  if  a  dull  insensibility  to  the  original  cause  of  the  evil 
be  a  cure.  Jenny  no  longer  missed  Maurice  on  particular 
occasions,  and,  having  grown  used  to  his  absence,  was  not 
aware  she  missed  him  in  a  wider  sense.  Love  so  impassioned 
as  theirs,  love  lived  through  in  moments  of  individual  ecstasy, 
was  in  the  verdict  of  average  comment  a  disease;  but  average 
comment  failed  to  realize  that,  like  the  scarlet  fever  of  her 
youth,  its  malignant  influence  would  be  extended  in  complica- 
tions of  abnormal  emotional  states.  Average  comment  did 
not  perceive  that  the  worst  tragedies  of  unhappy  love  are  not 
those  which  end  with  death  or  separation.     Nor   did  Jenny 


^artette  273 

herself  foresee  the  train  of  ills  that  in  the  wake  of  such  a  shock 
to  her  feelings  would  be  liable  to  twist  her  whole  life  awry. 

With  Maurice  she  had  embarked  on  the  restless  ocean  of 
an  existence  lived  at  unusually  high  pressure.  She  had  con- 
jured for  her  soul  dreams  of  adventure,  fiery-hearted  dreams 
which  would  not  be  satisfied  by  the  awakening  of  common- 
place dawns.  Time  had  certainly  assuaged  with  his  heavy 
anodyne  the  intimate  desire  for  her  lover;  but  time  would 
rather  aggravate  than  heal  the  universal  need  of  her  woman- 
hood. These  six  months  of  seared  emotions  and  withered 
hopes  were  a  trance  from  which  she  would  awake  on  the  very 
flashing  heels  of  the  last  mental  and  physical  excitement. 

It  was  said  in  the  last  chapter  that  a  less  sincere  heart  would 
have  been  caught  on  the  rebound.  Those  hearts  arc  dragged 
but  a  little  way  down  into  the  depths  of  misery;  for  such 
have  not  fallen  from  great  heights.  Jenny  on  the  first  of  May 
fell  straight  and  deep  as  a  plummet  to  the  bed  of  the  ocean 
of  despair,  there  to  lie  long  submerged.  But  to  one  who  had 
rejected  death,  life  would  not  hold  out  oblivion.  Life  with  all 
its  cold  insistence  called  her  once  more  to  the  surface;  thence 
to  make  for  whatever  beach  chance  should  offer.  Jenny, 
scarcely  conscious  of  any  responsibleness  for  her  first  struggles, 
clutched  at  sufifragism — a  support  for  which  life  never  intended 
her.  However,  it  served  to  help  her  ashore;  and  now,  with 
some  of  the  cynicism  that  creeps  into  the  adventurer's  life,  she 
looked  around  for  new  adventures.  Her  desire  to  revenge  her- 
self on  men  was  superseded  by  anxiety  to  rediscover  the  savor 
of  living.  Her  instinct  was  now  less  to  hurt  others  than  to 
indulge  herself.  A  year's  abstention  from  the  episodic  exist- 
ence spent  by  Irene  and  her  before  Maurice  had  created  an 
illusion  of  permanence,  had  given  that  earlier  time  a  romantic 
charm;  and  a  revival  of  it  seemed  fraught  with  many  possi- 
bilities of  a  more  widely  extended  wonder.  One  evening  late 
in  October  she  asked  Irene  casually,  as  if  there  had  been  no 
interval  of  desuetude,  whether  she  were  coming  out.  To  this 
inquiry  her  friend,  without  any  manifestation  of  surprise,  an- 


2  74  Carnival 

swered  in  the  affirmative.  It  was  characteristic  of  both  girls, 
this  manner  of  resuming  a  friendship. 

Now  began  a  period  not  worth  a  detailed  chronicle,  since  it 
was  merely  a  repetition  of  a  period  already  discussed — a  repeti- 
tion, moreover,  that  like  most  anachronisms  seemed  after  other 
events  jejune  and  somewhat  tawdry.  The  young  men  were 
just  as  young  as  those  of  earlier  years;  but  Irene  and  Jenny 
were  older  and,  if  before  they  had  found  it  hard  to  tolerate 
these  ephemeral  encounters,  they  found  it  harder  still  now. 
The  result  of  this  was  that,  where  once  a  single  whisky  and 
soda  was  enough,  now  three  or  four  scarcely  availed  to  pass 
away  the  time.  Neither  of  the  girls  drank  too  much  in  more 
than  a  general  sense,  but  it  was  an  omen  of  flying  youth  when 
whiskies  were  invoked  to  give  an  edge  to  existence. 

One  evening  they  sat  in  the  Cafe  d'Afrique,  laughing  to 
each  other  over  the  physical  and  social  oddities  of  two  Nor- 
wegians who  had  constituted  themselves  their  hosts  on  the 
strength  of  a  daring  stage-door  introduction.  As  Jenny  paused 
in  her  laughter  to  catch  some  phrase  of  melody  in  the  orches- 
tra, she  saw  Castleton  drawing  near  their  table.  He  stopped  in 
doubt,  and  looked  at  her  from  wide,  gray  eyes  very  eager  under 
eyebrows  arched  in  a  question.  She  returned  his  gaze  without 
a  flicker  of  recognition,  and,  bowing  imperceptibly,  he  passed 
out  into  the  night.  The  doors  swung  together  behind  him, 
and  Jenny,  striking  a  match  from  the  stand  on  the  table,  set 
the  whole  box  alight  to  distract  Irene's  attention  from  what 
she  feared  in  the  blush  of  a  memory. 

"Come  on;  let's  go,"  she  said  to  her  friend. 

So  the  girls  left  the  two  Norwegians  desolate  and  volubly 
unintelligible. 

One  morning  in  November  Irene  came  Into  Jenny's  room 
at  Stacpole  Terrace. 

"My  Danby's  coming  home  this  week,"  she  announced. 
"And  his  brother,   too," 

Jenny  often  thought  to  herself  that  Danby  was  a  riddle. 
It  was  four  years  now  since  he  and  Irene  had  been  reputed  in 


iiuartette  275 

love ;  yet  nothing  seemed  to  have  happened  since  the  day  when 
for  a  fancy  he  dressed  his  sweetheart  in  short  frocks.  Here 
he  was  coming  back  from  France  as  he  had  come  back  time 
after  time  in  company  with  his  brother,  at  the  notion  of  meet- 
ing whom  Jenny  had  always  scoffed. 

"What  of  it?"  she  said. 

"Now  don't  be  nasty,  young  Jenny.  I  shall  be  glad  to  see 
him." 

"I  suppose  this  means  every  minute  you  can  get  together 
for  a  fortnight,  and  then  he'll  be  off  again  for  six  months. 
Why  doesn't  he  marry  you?" 

"He's  going  to,"  Irene  asserted,  twisting  the  knob  on  the 
corner  of  the  bed  round  and  round  until  it  squeaked.  "But  I 
don't  want  to  get  married,  not  yet." 

"Oh,  no,  it's  only  a  rumor.  Why  ever  not?  If  I  loved 
a  fellow  as  you  think  you  love  Danby,  I'd  get  married  quick 
enough." 

"Well,  you  didn't " 

"That's  enough  of  you,"  said  Jenny,  sitting  up  in  bed.  "No, 
I  know  I  didn't.     But  that  was  different." 

"Why  was  it  different?    My  Danby 's  a  gentleman." 

"Yes,  when  he's  asleep.  He  can't  be  much  or  he  wouldn't 
have  dressed  you  up  such  a  sight.  I'd  like  to  see  a  man  make 
such  a  poppy-show  of  me,"  cried  Jenny,  indignant  at  the  recol- 
lection of  the  incident. 

"Oh,  well,  he  doesn't  do  it  now,"  said  Irene  pacifically. 
"Aren't  you  coming  out  with  us?" 

"You're  very  free  all  of  a  sudden  with  your  Danby,"  Jenny 
continued  mockingly.  "I  remember  when  you  was  afraid  for 
your  life  some  girl  would  carry  him  off  under  your  nose.  Yet 
you  let  him  go  all  the  time  to  France.     I  think  you're  silly." 

Jenny  could  not  refrain  from  teasing  Irene.  The  habit  was 
firmly  established  and,  although  she  had  not  now  the  sense  of 
outraged  independence  which  prompted  her  attitude  in  old 
days,  she  kept  it  up  because  such  rallying  Vvas  easier  than  sym- 
pathetic attention. 


276 


Carnival 


"His  brother  Jack  says  he'd  like  to  meet  you." 

Jenny  laughed  derisively. 

"I  thought  you  weren't  giving  j^our  Danby  away  with  a 
pound  of  nothing.  Do  you  remember  when  I  used  to  call 
Jack  Danby  'Tin  Ribs  the  Second,'  and  you  used  to  get  so 
ratty?" 

"Well,  what  a  liberty,"  said  Irene,  laughing  at  the  now 
almost  forgotten  insult. 

Towards  the  dripping  fog-stained  close  of  November  Arthur 
and  Jack  Danby  arrived  from  Paris  and,  tall  as  lamp-posts, 
waited  for  the  two  girls  at  the  top  of  the  court  in  Jermyn 
Street.  It  did  not  strike  Jenny  at  the  time  that  the  appoint- 
ment seemed  girt  with  intrigue,  as  if  whispers  had  gone  to 
the  making  of  it,  whispers  that  voiced  a  deceitful  purpose  in 
her  friend.  Jenny  had  often  arraigned  the  methods  of  Mrs. 
Dale  and  denounced  the  encouragement  of  Winnie  and  Irene 
in  any  association  whose  profit  transcended  its  morality.  But 
she  never  really  understood  Irene,  and  her  teasing  was  a  sign 
of  this.  Under  the  circumstances  of  lovers  reunited,  she  ac- 
cepted her  place  at  Jack  Danby's  side  without  suspicion;  and 
was  only  dimly  aware  of  the  atmosphere  of  satisfaction  which 
clung  to  the  two  brothers  and  her  friend. 

In  the  bronzed  glow  of  the  Trocadero  grill-room  she  had 
an  opportunity  of  studying  the  two  men,  and  because  the  re- 
sult of  this  was  a  decided  preference  for  Jack,  she  lost  any 
suspicion  of  a  plot,  and  appeared  almost  to  enjoy  his  company. 

All  Arthur  Danby's  features,  even  his  ears,  seemed  exces- 
sively pointed,  while  his  thinness  and  length  of  limb  accentu- 
ated this  peaked  effect  of  countenance.  His  complexion  had 
preserved  the  clearness  of  youth,  but  had  become  waxy  from 
dissipation,  and  in  certain  lights  was  feathered  with  fine  lines 
that  looked  like  scratches  on  a  smooth  surface.  His  eyelids 
were  pufify  and  tinged  slightly  round  the  rims  with  a  redness 
which  was  the  more  obvious  from  the  vivid  light  blue  eyes  it 
surrounded.  A  certain  biabolic  strangeness  redeemed  the  whole 
effect  from  mere  unpleasantness.    Jack  Danby  was  not  so  tall 


^artette  277 


as  his  brother,  and  his  features  were  less  sharply  pointed, 
although  they  were  as  clearly  defined.  He  had  similar  eyes  of 
almost  cobalt  blue  when  contrasted  with  the  dead  whiteness 
of  a  skin  that  gave  the  impression  of  being  powdered.  The 
younger  brother's  eyes  preserved  more  fire  and  seemed  under 
the  influence  of  a  suggestive  conversation  to  be  lighted  up  from 
behind  in  a  way  that  sent  a  sudden  breathlessness  through 
many  women.  Jenny,  when  she  looked  at  him  full,  was  aware 
less  of  his  eyes  than  of  her  own,  which  secerned  to  her  to  be 
kindling  in  the  dry  sparks  that  were  radiated  by  his;  and  even 
as  she  felt  scorched  by  the  brain  which  was  thus  expressed, 
her  own  eyes  would  melt,  as  it  were,  to  meet  appropriately 
the  liquid  softness  that  succeeded.  His  lips  were  never  re- 
markably red,  and  as  the  evening  advanced  they  adopted  the 
exact  shade  of  his  complexion,  which  from  paleness  took  on 
the  lifeless  monotone  of  color  that  is  seen  in  the  rain-soaked 
petal  of  a  pink  rose.  Danby's  mouth  curved  upwards,  and 
when  he  smiled,  he  only  smiled  on  one  side  of  his  face.  The 
immediate  expression  he  conveyed  was  that  of  profound  lassi- 
tude changed  by  any  topic  of  sly  licentiousness  to  a  startling 
concentration. 

A  pictorial  representation  of  the  party  would  have  some 
decorative  value.  The  two  brothers  had  ordered  red  mullet, 
which  lay  scattered  about  their  plates  in  mingled  hues  of  cor- 
nelian, rose  and  tarnished  copper.  Their  wine  was  Lacrima 
Christ!  of  the  precise  tint  to  carry  on  the  scheme  of  color. 
Jenny  and  Irene  were  drinking  champagne  whose  pale  amber 
sparkled  against  the  prevailing  luster,  contrasting  and  lighten- 
ing the  arrangement  of  metallic  tints,  just  as  Jenny's  fair  hair 
set  of?  and  was  at  the  same  time  enhanced  by  Irene's  copper- 
brown.  As  a  group  of  revellers  the  four  of  them  composed 
into  a  rich  enough  study  in  genre,  and  the  fanciful  observer 
would  extract  from  the  position  of  the  two  men  a  certain 
potentiality  for  romantic  events  as,  somewhat  hunched  and 
looking  up  from  down-turned  heads,  they  both  sat  with  legs 
outstretched  to  the  extent  of  their  length.    The  more  imagina- 


278 


Carnival 


tive  observer  would  perceive  in  the  group  something  unhealthy, 
something  jaisande,  an  air  of  too  deliberate  enjoyment  that 
seemed  to  imply  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  limitations  of 
human  pleasure.  These  men  and  girls  aimed  no  arrow  of 
fleeting  gayety  to  pierce  in  a  straight,  sharp  course  the  heart 
of  the  present.  Sophistication  clung  to  them,  and  weariness. 
That  senescent  October  moon  which  a  year  ago  marked  the 
end  of  love's  halcyon  would  have  been  a  suitable  light  for  such 
a  party.  Jenny  herself  had  gone  back  to  that  condition  of 
cynicism  which  before  the  days  of  Maurice  was  due  to  ignor- 
ance, but  was  now  a  profounder  cynicism  based  on  experience. 
Irene  had  always  been  skeptical  of  emotional  heights,  had 
always  accepted  life  sensually  without  much  entliusiasm  either 
for  the  gratification  or  the  denial  of  her  ambitions.  As  for  the 
two  men,  they  had  grown  thin  on  self-indulgence. 

"Fill  up  your  glasses,  girls,"  said  Arthur. 

"Fill  up,"  echoed  Jack.  "Is  there  time  for  another  bottle?" 
he  added  anxiously. 

"This  cheese  is  very  good,"  commented  Arthur. 

"Delicious,"  the  other  agreed. 

"You  two  seem  to  think  of  nothing  but  eating  and  drink- 
ing," said  Jenny  distastefully. 

"Oh,  no,  we  think  of  other  things,  don't  we,  Jack?"  con- 
tradicted the  older  brother,  with  a  sort  of  frigid  relish. 

"Rather,"  the  younger  one  corroborated,  looking  sideways 
at  Jenny. 

"We  must  have  a  good  time  this  winter,"  Arthur  an- 
nounced. "We  needn't  go  back  to  Paris  for  a  month  or  two. 
We  must  have  a  good  time  at  our  flat  in  Victoria." 

"London's  a  much  wickeder  city  than  Paris,"  said  Jack, 
addressing  the  air  like  some  pontiff  of  vice.  "I  like  these  No- 
vember nights  with  shapes  of  women  looming  up  through  the 

fog.     A  friend  of  mine "     As  Jack  Danby  descended  to 

personal  reminiscence,  he  lost  his  sinister  power  and  became 
mean  and  common.  "When  I  say  friend — I  should  say  busi- 
ness friend,  eh,  Arthur?"  he  asked,  smiling  on  the  side  of  his 


Quartette  279 

face  nearer  to  his  brother.  "  Well,  he's  a  lord  as  a  matter  of 
fact,"  he  continued  in  accents  of  studied  indiffer- 
ence. 

"Tell  the  girls  about  him,"  urged  his  brother,  and  "Fill  up 
your  glasses,"  he  murmured  as,  leaning  back  in  his  chair,  he 
seemed  to  fade  away  into  clouds  of  smoke  blown  from  a  very 
long,  thin  and  black  cigar. 

"This  lord — I  won't  tell  you  his  name "  said  Jack,  "he 

wanders  about  in  fogs  until  he  meets  a  shape  that  attracts  him. 
Then  he  hands  her  a  velvet  mask,  and  takes  her  home.  What 
an  imagination,"  chuckled  the  narrator. 

"Well,  I  call  him  a  dirty  rotter,"  said  Jenny. 

"Do  you?"  asked  Jack,  as  if  struck  by  the  novelty  of  such 
a  point  of  view. 

The  lights  were  being  extinguished  now.  The  quenching 
of  the  orange  illumination,  and  the  barren  waste  of  empty 
tables  gave  the  grill-room  a  raffish  look  which  consorted  well 
with  the  personalities  of  the  two  brothers.  The  party  broke 
up  in  the  abrupt  fashion  of  England,  and  within  a  few  minutes 
of  sitting  comfortably  round  a  richly  lighted  supper-table,  the 
two  girls  were  seated  in  a  dark  taxi  on  the  way  to  Camden 
Town. 

"How  do  you  like  Jack  Danby?"  Irene  inquired. 

"He's  all  right.  Only  I  don't  know — I  think  if  I'd  met 
him  last  year  I'd  have  thought  him  a  swine.  I  think  I  must 
be  turning  funny.  What  are  they — these  long  friends  of 
yours?"  she  added,  after  a  pause.  "What  do  they  do  in 
Paris?" 

"They  bring  out  books,"  Irene  informed  her. 

"Books?"  echoed  Jenny.     "What  sort  of  books?" 

"Ordinary  books,  I  suppose,"  said  Irene,  slightly  huffed  by 
Jenny's  contemptuous  incredulity. 

"Well,  what  do  they  want  to  live  in  Paris  for,  if  they're 
ordinary  books?" 

"That's  where  their  business  is." 

"Funny  place  to  do  a  business  in  ordinary  books." 


2  So  Carnival 

"I  don't  see  why." 

"Oh,  well,  it  doesn't  matter.  But  /  think  it's  funny,  that's 
all.     You  are  deep,  Irene." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Irene,  looking  out  of  the  window  at  the 
waves  of  light  that  broke  against  the  window  with  each  pass- 
ing street  lamp.  "You  always  say  that,  but  I'm  not  near  so 
deep  as  what  you  are." 

"Yes,  you  are,  because  I'm  always  catching  you  out  in  a  lie 
which  you  don't  me." 

"No,  because  I'm  not  so  nosy." 

"Now  don't  be  silly  and  get  in  a  paddy  about  nothing," 
Jenny  advised.  "You  can't  help  having  funny  friends.  Only 
what  I  can't  understand  is  myself.  I  think  they're  both 
beasts,  and  yet  I'd  like  to  see  them  again.  That's  where  I'm 
funny,  I  think." 

Irene  assumed  an  attitude  of  lofty  indifference. 

"There's  no  need  for  you  to  see  them  again,  if  you  don't 
like  them.  Only  they  give  you  a  good  time,  and  Arthur  gave 
me  some  glorious  rings." 

"Which  your  mother  pawned,"  interrupted  Jenny. 

"And  he's  going  to  marry  me,"  Irene  persisted. 

"Yes,  if  you  get  married  after  dinner  when  he's  drunk." 

"Oh,  well,  what  of  it?  You're  not  so  clever  as  what  you 
make  out  to  be." 

"That's  quite  right,"  said  Jenny,  lapsing  into  a  gloom  of 
introspection. 

Lying  awake  that  night  in  the  bewilderment  of  a  new  ex- 
perience, the  image  of  Jack  Danby  recurred  to  her  like  the 
pale  image  of  a  sick  dream  at  once  repulsive  and  perilously 
attractive.  Time  after  time  she  would  drive  him  from  her 
mind,  but  as  fast  as  he  was  banished,  his  slim  face  would 
obtrude  itself  from  another  quarter.  He  would  peep  from 
behind  the  musty  curtains,  he  would  take  form  in  the  waver- 
ing gray  shadow  thrown  upon  the  ceiling  by  the  gas.  He 
would  slide  round  pictures  and  materialize  from  the  heap  of 
clothes  on  the  wicker  arm-chair  by  the  bed. 


^ 


uartette  2  8 


One  other  image  could  have  contended  with  him;  but  that 
image  had  been  finally  exorcised  by  six  months  of  mental  disci- 
pline. All  that  was  left  of  Maurice  was  the  fire  he  had 
kindled,  the  fire  of  passion  that,  lying  dormant  since  his  deser- 
tion, was  now  burning  luridly  in  Jenny's  heart. 


Chapter  XXVIII:  St,  Fale?ttines  Eve 

THE  supper  at  the  Trocadero  only  marked  the  first  of 
many  such  evenings  spent  in  the  company  of  Irene 
and  the  two  brothers.  However  much  one  side  of 
Jenny's  character  might  despise  Jack  Danby,  to  another  side  he 
was  strangely  soothing.  When  she  was  beside  Maurice,  every 
moment  used  to  be  haunted  by  its  own  ghost,  bitter-sweet  with 
the  dread  of  finality.  Danby 's  effect  was  that  of  a  sedative 
drug  whose  action,  however  grateful  at  the  time,  is  loathed 
in  retrospect,  until  deprivation  renews  desire.  Jenny  found 
herself  longing  to  sit  near  him  and  was  fretful  in  his  absence 
because,  not  being  in  love  with  him,  he  did  not  occupy  her 
meditations  pleasantly.  He  was  worth  nothing  to  her  without 
the  sense  of  contact.  He  was  a  bad  habit:  under  certain  con- 
ditions of  opportunity  in  association  he  might  become  a  vice. 

Evolution,  in  providence  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  species, 
has  kept  woman  some  thousands  of  years  nearer  to  animals 
than  man.  Hence  their  inexplicableness  to  the  majority  of 
the  opposite  sex.  Men  have  built  up  a  convention  of  fastidious 
woman  to  flatter  their  own  sexual  rivalry.  Woman  is  relin- 
quished as  a  riddle  when  she  fails  to  conform  to  masculine 
standards  of  behavior.  Man  is  accustomed  to  protest  that  cer- 
tain debased — or  rather  highly  specialized — types  of  his  own 
sex  are  unreasonably  attractive.  He  generally  fails  to  perceive 
that  when  a  woman  cannot  find  a  man  who  is  able  to  stimu- 
late her  imagination,  she  often  looks  for  another  who  will 
gratify  her  senses. 

;       Maurice   was    never   the   lover   corresponding   most    nearly 

1  282 


St.  Valentine  s  Eve  283 

with  an  ideal  of  greensick  maiden  dreams.  Jenny's  sensibility 
had  not  been  stultified  by  these  emotional  ills,  so  that  when  lie 
crossed  her  horizon,  she  loved  him  sanely  without  prejudice. 
She  made  him  sovereign  of  her  destiny  because  he  seemed  to 
her  fit  for  power.  He  completely  satisfied  her  imagination ; 
and,  having  made  a  woman  of  her,  he  left  a  libertine  to  reap 
what  he  had  sown. 

Jack  Danby  possessed  the  sly  patience  of  an  accomplished 
rake.  He  never  alarmed  Jenny  with  suggestions  of  escort, 
with  importunity  of  embraces.  His  was  the  stealthy  wooing 
of  inactivity  and  smoldering  eyes.  He  would  let  slip  no 
occasion  for  interpreting  life  to  the  disadvantage  of  virtue; 
he  was  always  sensually  insistent.  He  and  his  brother,  off- 
spring of  a  lady's  maid  and  an  old  demirep,  owed  to  their 
inheritance  of  a  scabrous  library  the  foundations  of  material 
prosperity.  They  owed  also  their  corrupt  breed  which,  through 
some  paradox  of  healing,  might  be  valuable  to  women  in  the 
mood  for  oblivion  whom  the  ordinary  anaesthetics  of  memory 
had  failed. 

One  Saturday  night  early  in  January,  Arthur  suggested  that 
the  two  girls  should  come  to  tea  and  spend  the  evening  at  the 
flat  in  Victoria.  Irene  looked  at  Jenny,  and  Jenny  nodded 
her  approval  of  the  plan. 

Greycoat  Gardens  lay  between  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores 
and  Vincent  Square.  The  windows  at  the  back  looked  out 
over  the  playground  of  an  old-fashioned  charity  school,  and 
the  roof  made  a  wave  in  that  sea  of  roofs  visible  from  the 
studio  window  in  Grosvenor  Road.  But  that  was  ten  months 
ago. 

When  Jenny  and  Irene  reached  the  Gardens,  the  mud- 
splashed  January  darkness  had  already  fallen ;  but  for  some 
reason  the  entrance-hall  of  the  block  containing  the  Danbys' 
flat  was  not  yet  lighted  up.  It  seemed  cavernous  and  chill; 
the  stone  stairs  were  repellent  and  the  whole  air  full  of  hollow 
warnings.  Half-way  up,  a  watery  exhalation  filtered  through 
the  frosted  glass  of  a  flat's  front  door  in  a  cold  effulgence 
19 


284 


Carnival 


which  added  eerily  to  the  lifelessness  of  all  the  other  doors. 
The  Danbys  lived  at  the  very  top,  and  it  took  all  Irene's 
powers  of  persuasion  to  induce  Jenny  to  complete  the  ascent. 
At  last,  however,  they  gained  their  destination  and  immediately 
on  the  shrilling  of  an  electric  bell  walked  through  a  narrow 
hall  misty  with  the  fumes  of  Egyptian  cigarettes.  The  sitting- 
room  looked  cosy  with  its  deep  crimson  paper  and  fireglow  and 
big  arm-chairs  heaped  with  downy  cushions.  Yet  the  atmos- 
phere had  the  sickly  oppression  of  an  opiate,  and  it  did  not 
take  Jenny  long  to  pull  back  the  purple  velvet  curtains  and 
throw  open  the  window  to  the  raw  winter  night. 

"It's  like  being  in  a  bottle  of  port  in  this  room.  Phew! 
I  shall  have  a  most  shocking  headache  soon,"  she  prophesied. 

"Won't  you  leave  your  coats  and  things  in  my  room?"  said 
Jack  Danby. 

"That's  not  such  a  dusty  idea.     Come  on,  young  Ireen." 

The  two  girls  followed  their  host  to  his  room  which  was 
hung  with  rose  du  Barri  draperies  prodigally  braided  with 
gold. 

"What  a  glorious  room,"  cried  Jenny. 

"You  think  so?"  asked  its  owner. 

"Rather." 

The  evening  passed  away  without  any  development  of  the 
situation.  The  girls  looked  at  books  and  pictures  according 
to  the  custom  of  first  visits,  and  drank  Green  Chartreuse  after 
the  supper  which  they  had  helped  to  lay.  They  also  smoked 
many  fat  Egyptian  cigarettes  during  an  evening  of  heavy 
silences,  broken  by  the  crunch  of  subsiding  coal  and  occasional 
cries  that  floated  in  from  neighboring  slums  across  the  stillness 
of  a  wet  Sunday  night. 

As  Jenny  paused  on  the  step  of  the  taxi  that  was  to  drive 
them  home.  Jack  Danby  held  her  hand  very  tightly. 

"You'll  come  again?"  he  asked. 

"Of  course." 

After  this  first  visit  Jenny  and  Irene  spent  almost  every 
afternoon  at  the  flat  in  Greycoat  Gardens.     Jenny  liked  the 


St,  Valentine  s  Eve  285 

sensation  of  Jack  Danby  brusliing  against  her,  of  the  sudden 
twitches  he  would  give  her  hands,  nor  did  she  resent  an  unex- 
pected kiss  with  which  he  once  burnt  her  neck  as  she  leaned 
over  the  table  looking  at  a  portfolio  of  Lancret's  engravings. 

Arthur  Danby  went  back  to  Paris  in  advance  of  his  brother, 
and  Jenny  fell  into  the  habit  of  visiting  the  fllat  alone.  Jack 
still  never  startled  her  with  sudden  importunities,  never  sug- 
gested the  existence  of  another  point  of  view  beside  her  own. 
He  seemed  perfectly  content  to  watch  her  enjoyment  of  his 
luxury   and  heavy  comfort. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  in  the  middle  of  February — St.  Val- 
entine's Eve,  to  be  precise — when  the  snowdrops  drift  in 
myriads  across  the  London  parks,  Jenny  went  to  pay  her  fare- 
well visit.  Jack  Danby  was  leaving  England  on  the  next  day 
to  rejoin  his  brother  in  Paris.  Before  she  came  away  from 
Stacpole  Terrace,  Jenny  had  arranged  for  Irene  to  pick  her 
up  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  so  that  they  could  go  back 
together.  For  some  reason  she  was  very  particular  in  exacting 
a  strict  promise  from  Irene  not  to  fail  her. 

"What  a  fuss  about  nothing,"  grumbled  her  friend. 

"Oh,  well,  Ireen,  I  don't  like  coming  back  alone  on  a 
Sunday  night.     I  hate  Sunday,  and  you  know  it." 

Jenny,  buried  in  a  big  arm-chair,  dozed  away  the  afternoon 
as  usual  and  after  tea  sat  staring  into  the  fire,  while  Danby 
from  the  hearthrug  assiduously  stroked  the  slim  white  hand 
that  drooped  listlessly  over  an  arm  of  the  chair.  A  steady 
drench  of  rain  had  set  in  with  the  dusk,  and,  being  close  under 
the  roof,  they  could  hear  the  gurgle  and  hiss  of  the  flooded 
gutters.  Neither  of  them  made  a  move  to  turn  on  the  electric 
light  or  stir  the  lowering  fire  to  flame.  Danby  even  denied 
himself  three  or  four  cigarettes  so  that  the  magnetic  current 
of  sensuousness  should  not  be  interrupted.  Inch  by  inch  he 
drew  closer  to  Jenny,  sliding  noiselessly  over  the  thick  fur  of 
the  rug.  He  was  now  near  enough  to  kiss  slowly  her  bare 
forearm  and  separately  each  supple  finger.  Jenny  leaned  back 
unconscious  of  him,  though  remotely  pleased  by  his  kisses,  in 


2  86  Carnival 

her  dull  hell  of  memory  where  repressed  inclinations  smol- 
dered like  the  fire  on  which  her  eyes  were  fixed.  What  a  fool 
she  had  been  for  the  sake  of  a  silly  powerlessness  to  take  the 
plunge.  It  was  bound  to  be  taken  in  the  end — with  someone. 
But  Maurice  was  a  rotter,  and  would  he  after  all  have  been 
worthy  of  the  ultimate  sacrifice?  Would  he  not  have  tired  and 
put  her  under  an  even  more  severe  humiliation?  Toys  were 
good  enough  for  Maurice.  It  was  ridiculous  to  make  life  a 
burden  for  the  sake  of  one  man.  Twentj'-two  next  October. 
How  quickly  the  years  were  flying.  So,  in  a  maze  of  specula- 
tion, regret  and  resolution,  Jenny  lay  back  in  the  deep  arm- 
chair while  Jack  Danby  drugged  her  with  kisses.  She  drew 
her  arm  away  at  last,  feeling  hungry  in  a  vague  way. 

"What's  the  time?"  she  asked,  yawning. 

"It  must  be  after  nine." 

"Good  lord,  and  we  haven't  had  supper  yet." 

"Are  we  going  to  wait  for  Irene?"  he  inquired. 

"Not  for  supper.    She  is  late.    I  won't  half  tell  her  ofif." 

Danby  had  risen  from  the  hearth-rug  and  turned  on  the 
light.     Jenny  was  poking  the  fire  vigorously. 

"I've  got  pate  de  foie  gras,"  he  informed  her. 

"Ugh,  what  horrible-looking  stuff,"  she  said. 

"Don't  you  like  it?" 

"I  never  tried  it." 

"Try  now,"  Danby  urged. 

"No,  thanks,  it  looks  like  bad  butter." 

The  rain  increased  in  volume  as  the  evening  wore  on.  Still 
Irene  did  not  come.  It  struck  eleven  o'clock,  and  Jenny  said 
she  could  wait  no  longer. 

"I'll  get  a  cab,"  said  Danby. 

"No;  don't  leave  me  here  all  alone,"  cried  Jenny. 

"Why  should  you  go  home  at  all  to-night?"  Danby 
breathed  in  a  parched  whisper. 

Jenny  pressed  her  face  against  the  jet-black  window-pane 
and  suddenly  away  beyond  Westminster  there  was  a  low  bour- 
don of  thunder. 


St,  Valentine  5  Eve  287 

"Stay  with  nie,"  pleaded  Danby;  "it's  such  a  night  for  love." 
"Who    cares?"    murmured    Jenny.      "I've    only    myself    to 
think  about." 

"What  did  you  say?"  he  asked. 

"Nothing." 

"But  jou  will  stay?" 

She  nodded. 


chapter  XXIX:  Columbine  at  Dawn 

COLUMBINE,  leaden-eyed,  sat  up  in  the  strange 
room,  where  over  an  unfamih'ar  chair  lay  huddled 
all  her  clothes.  Through  the  luminous  white  fog  of 
dawn  a  silver  sun,  breasting  the  house-tops,  gleamed  very  large. 
Wan  with  a  thousand  meditations,  seeming  frail  as  the  mist  of 
St.  Valentine's  morning,  suddenly  she  flung  herself  deep  into 
the  pillow  and,  buried  thus,  lay  motionless  like  a  marionette 
whose  wire  has  snapped. 


288 


chapter  XXX:  Lugete^  0  Veneres 

THE  silver  dawn  was  softened  to  a  mother-of-pearl 
morning  that  seemed  less  primal  than  autumnal. 
When  Danby  came  into  the  sitting-room,  he  found 
Jenny,  fully  dressed  for  departure,  crouched  over  the  ashes 
of  last  night's  fire.  He  had  a  pinched,  unv.holesome  look  so 
early  in  the  day,  and  was  peevish  because  Jenny's  presence  kept 
him  from  summoning  the  housekeeper  to  bring  up  breakfast. 

"We  must  get  something  to  eat,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  want  anything,"  said  Jenny. 

"Why  not?" 

"I've  got  a  headache." 

Danby  tried  to  appear  sympathetic;  but  his  hands  so  early 
were  cold  as  fish,  and  his  touch  made  Jenny  shrink. 

"What  a  nuisance  packing  is.  I've  got  a  fearful  lot  to  do 
to  get  to  Charing  Cross  in  time  for  the  boat  train." 

Like  many  other  people  he  tried  to  demonstrate  his  sympathy 
by  enlarging  on  his  own  trials. 

"Well?"  said  Jenny,  regarding  him  from  eyes  pinpointed 
with  revulsion  in  a  critical  survey  that  was  not  softened  by 
the  gray  morning  light,  for  whatever  silkiness  clung  to  the 
outside  air  was  lost  in  the  stale  room. 

"I  wish  I  hadn't  got  to  go  away,"  said  Danby  awkwardly. 

"Why?"  Jenny  asked,  screwing  up  her  eyes  as  if  she  had 
perceived  upon  the  wall  an  unpleasant  insect. 

"Well,  it  seems  a  pity  now  that  we've — we've  got  to  know 
each  other  better." 

"You  don't  think,"  said  Jenny,  chiseling  the  words  from 

289 


290  Carnival 

the  very  bedrock  of  her  contempt,  "you  don't  think  that  be- 
cause I've  been  in  your  flat  all  a  night,  you  know  me?  Why, 
I  don't  know  myself  even." 

"Aren't  you  going  to  come  and  see  me  off?"  he  asked  in  a 
ludicrous  attempt  at  sentiment. 

"See  you  of^?  See  you  off?  Oh  yes,  that's  a  game  of  mine 
seeing  off  clothes-props.  If  you  can't  move,"  she  added,  "I 
can.    Let  me  pass,  please." 

Jenny  walked  towards  the  door  of  the  contaminated  flat 
followed  by  Danby  in  a  state  of  weak  bewilderment. 

"You'll  write  to  me,  little  girl?"  he  asked,  making  a  motion 
to  detain  her  hand. 

"You  seem  to  think  I'm  struck  on  you,"  she  rapped  out. 
"But  I'm  not." 

"Well,  why  did  you " 

"Ah,  Mr.  Enquire  Within,"  she  interrupted,  "you're  right. 
Why?" 

"Surely,"  he  persisted,  "the  first  person  who " 

"The  first!  Hark  at  Mr.  Early  Bird.  If  you  go  out  with 
your  long  soppy  self  like  that,  you'll  miss  your  train.  Ching-a- 
ling." 

So  Jenny  parted  from  Mr.  Jack  Danby  as  long  ago  she 
had  parted  from  Mr.  Terence  O'Meagh  of  the  Royal  Lein- 
ster  Fusiliers.  It  was  typical  of  her  pride  that,  in  order  to 
rob  Danby  of  any  satisfaction  in  his  achievement,  she  should 
prefer  to  let  him  assume  he  was  merely  one  of  a  crowd,  a  com- 
monplace incident  in  her  progress.  Anything  seemed  more 
suitable  to  the  fancy  of  such  a  despicable  creature  than  the 
self-congratulation  of  the  pioneer. 

Yet,  though  she  bore  herself  so  bravely  from  the  hated  room 
which  had  witnessed  the  destruction  of  her  inaccessibility, 
when  she  was  seated  alone  in  the  taxi  whirring  back  to  Cam- 
den Town,  Jenny  was  very  near  to  an  emotional  collapse. 
This  was  averted  by  an  instinct  to  review  the  several  aspects 
of  the  experience.  The  actual  event,  happening  in  the  normal 
course  of  a   temperament's  advance  to   completeness,  scarcely 


Lugete^  0  Veneres  291 


distressed  her.  On  the  other  hand,  the  circumstances  and 
actors  were  abhorrent.  The  very  existence  of  the  Danbys  was 
an  outrage,  and  as  for  Irene,  her  behavior  was  treachery  in- 
carnate. What  added  bitterness  to  her  meditations  was  the 
reflection  that,  however  contemptuous  she  might  show  herself 
of  the  two  brothers,  they,  with  Irene  to  voice  their  absence, 
would  have  the  laugh  on  their  side.  From  one  point  of  view 
it  had  been  a  skillful  seduction  effected  with  the  deliberation 
of  use.  Jenny  was  maddened  by  the  thought  that  Irene  would 
believe  she  had  been  unable  to  avoid  it,  that  she  had  been  be- 
witched by  Jack  Danby's  dissolute  accomplishments.  She 
would  never  be  able  to  impress  Irene's  stolidity  with  the  fact 
that  she  had  used  Danby  for  her  own  purpose.  Irene  would 
be  bound  to  consider  the  wretched  business  a  justification  of 
her  own  dependence  on  the  elder  brother.  She  would  triumph 
with  damaging  retorts,  pointing  out  the  fallibility  of  other 
girls  when  brought  beneath  the  Danby  sway,  citing  Jenny  in  a 
manner  that  would  infuriate  her  with  the  impotence  of  argu- 
ment. All  larger  issues  were  obscured  by  this  petty  annoy- 
ance, and  at  first  her  regrets  were  confined  to  wishing  she 
had  played  the  inevitable  drama  of  womanhood  in  some  secret 
place  with  only  her  own  soul  for  audience.  Why  had  she 
stayed  at  Greycoat  Gardens  last  night? 

After  the  first  vexation  of  her  loss  of  prestige,  deeper  com- 
mentaries upon  the  act  wrote  themselves  across  her  mind.  She 
had  intended,  while  her  mother  was  still  alive,  to  be  rigidly 
unassailable.  There  was  weakness  in  her  failure  to  sustain 
this  resolution,  and  Jenny  loathed  weakness.  What  had  made 
her  carry  this  experience  through  against  the  finest  influence 
upon  her  life?  Well,  it  was  done;  but  the  knowledge  of  it 
must  be  kept  from  her  mother.  Regrets  were  foolish;  yet  she 
would  make  some  reparation.  She  would  go  and  live  at  home 
again  and,  before  anything,  please  her  mother  for  a  long  time 
to  come.  She  would  be  extra  nice  to  May.  She  would  be — 
in  parental  terminology — a  really  good  girl. 

Whatever  agony  Maurice's  lo\e  had  caused  her  to  bear,  this 


292  Carnival 


sacrifice  of  her  youth  upon  a  tawdry  altar  had  finally  and 
effectually  deadened.  She  could  meet  without  a  tremor  now 
the  cause  of  all  the  miserable  business.  Things  might  have 
been  different,  were  fidelity  an  imaginable  virtue.  But  it  was 
all  over  now;  she  had  consummated  the  aspirations  of  youth. 
There  should  be  an  end  of  love  henceforth.  For  what  it  was 
vrorth  of  bitter  and  sweet,  she  had  known  it.  No  longer  was 
the  viceroy  of  human  destiny  a  riddle.  He  had  lost  his  wings 
and  lay  like  a  foundling  in  the  gutter.  No  more  of  such  a 
sorry  draggled  god  for  her.  Jenny's  ambition  now  was  in 
reconciliation  with  her  mother  to  be  reestablished  in  the  well- 
beloved  house  in  Hagworth  Street,  and  in  affection  for  old 
familiar  things  to  forget  the  wild  adventures  of  pas- 
sion. 

The  taxi  swept  on  down  the  Hampstead  Road  until  it 
turned  off  on  the  right  to  Camden  Town,  whose  curious  rococo 
squares  mildewed  and  queerly  ornamented  seemed  the  abode 
of  a  fantastic  depression.  For  all  the  sunlight  of  St.  Valentine, 
the  snowdrops  looked  like  very  foolish  virgins  as  they  shivered 
in  the  wind  about  the  blackened  grass,  good  sport  for  idle 
sparrows.  The  impression  of  faded  wickedness  made  on 
Jenny's  mind  by  Stacpole  Terrace  that  morning  suited  her 
disgust.  Every  window  in  the  row  of  houses  was  askew, 
cocking  a  sinister  eye  at  her  reappearance.  Every  house  looked 
impure  with  a  smear  of  green  damp  over  the  stucco.  Stacpole 
Terrace  wore  an  air  of  battered  gayety  fit  only  for  sly  en- 
trances at  twilight  and  furtive  escapes  in  the  dawn;  while  in 
one  of  the  front  gardens  a  stone  Cupid  with  broken  nose 
smirked  perpetually  at  whatever  shady  intrigue  came  under 
his  patronage. 

It  was  nearly  eleven  o'clock  when  Jenny,  entering  the  sit- 
ting-room, found  Irene  bunched  sloppily  over  the  fire.  Mrs. 
Dale  and  her  youngest  daughter  were  busy  in  the  kitchen. 
Winnie  was  not  yet  out  of  bed,  and  the  head  of  the  family 
was  studying  in  the  dust  of  his  small  apartment  the  bargains 
advertised  in  yesterday's  paper. 


Lugete^  0  Veneres  293 


"Why  didn't  you  call  for  me  last  night?"  Jenny  demanded 
straight  and  swift. 

"Oh,  well,  it  was  too  wet,"  grumbled  Irene,  covering  as 
well  as  she  could  her  shame  with  nonchalance. 

"Ireen,  I  think  you're  a  rotter.  I  think  you're  real  mean, 
and  nothing  won't  ever  make  me  believe  you  didn't  do  it  for 
the  purpose.     Too  wet!" 

Irene  declined  to  admit  herself  in  the  wrong. 

"Well,  it  was  too  wet.  You  could  easy  have  come  home 
in  a  taxi  if  you'd  wanted  to." 

Jenny  stamped  with  rage. 

"What  I  could  have  done  hasn't  got  nothing  to  do  with  it 
all,  and  you  know  it  hasn't.  You  said  you  were  coming  for 
me  and  you  didn't,  and  I  say  you're  a  sneak.  Because  you 
and  your  massive  sister  behave  anyhow,  you'd  like  to  make 
everyone  else  as  bad." 

Irene,  contending  even  with  unclasped  stays,  made  an  effort 
at  dignity. 

"You  can  just  shut  up,  Jenny  Pearl,  because  you  know 
very  well  my  mother  wouldn't  allow  me  to  do  anything.  You 
know  that." 

Jenny  fumed  with  indignation. 

"Your  mother?  Why,  when  she's  got  half  a  bottle  of  gin 
to  cry  with  over  her  darling  Ireen  or  darling  Winnie,  she's 
very  glad  to  pawn  what  her  darlings  get  given  to  them." 

"You've  got  very  good,"  said  Irene,  bitterly  sarcastic,  "since 
this  night  out." 

"Which  you  meant  for  me  to  spend  out  from  the  moment 
you  introduced  me  to  him." 

"What  do  you  take  me  for?"  inquired  Irene  rashly. 

"I  take  you  for  what  you  are — a  rotter.  God!  and  think 
what  you  will  be  one  day — I  know — a  dirty  old  woman  in  a 
basement  with  a  red  petticoat  and  a  halfpenny  dip  and  a 
quartern  of  gin." 

Irene's  imagination  was  not  extensive  enough  to  cap  this 
prophecy,  so  she  poked  the  fire  instead  of  making  the  attempt. 


2  94  Carnival 

"Nobody  wants  you  to  stay  here,"  she  muttered. 

"Don't  you  worry  yourself.  I'm  going  upstairs  to  pack  my 
things  up  now." 

Jenny  was  not  able  to  make  a  completely  effective  departure 
with  cab  at  the  door  and  heaped-up  baggage,  because  her  taxi 
back  from  Victoria  and  the  payment  of  a  week's  board  at  Stac- 
pole  Terrace  had  exhausted  her  ready  money.  However,  she 
had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  her  portmanteau,  her  hatbox  and 
a  small  bag  stacked  in  tapering  stories  upon  the  bedroom  floor, 
there  to  await  the  offices  of  Carter  Paterson. 

Mrs,  Dale  emerged  from  the  kitchen  at  the  rumor  of  change 
and,  as  morning  did  not  evoke  sentiment,  indulged  in  a  criti- 
cism of  Jenny's  personal  appearance. 

"I  don't  like  that  hat  of  yours  and  never  did,"  she  an- 
nounced. "I  can't  get  used  to  these  new-fangled  fashions  and 
never  shall." 

"What  of  it?"  said  Jenny,  with  marked  indifference. 

"Oh,  nothing  at  all,  if  it  pleases  you.  You've  got  to  wear 
it  and  I  suppose  there's  nothing  more  to  be  said.  But  I  think 
that  hat  is  vulgar.  Vulgar  it  would  have  been  called  when  I 
was  a  girl.  And  I  can't  think  what  you  want  to  go  all  of 
a  sudden  for  like  this.  It  isn't  often  I  make  a  beefsteak  pud- 
ding." 

Jenny  was  in  a  flutter  to  be  away. 

"Good-bye,  Mrs.  Dale,"  she  said  firmly. 

"Well,  good-bye,  Jenny.  You  mustn't  mind  shaking  hands 
with  me  all  covered  in  suet.  As  I  say,  it's  very  seldom  I  do 
make  a  beefsteak  pudding.  I  won't  disturb  my  old  man.  He's 
busy  this  morning.  Come  and  tell  us  how  you  get  on 
soon." 

It  was  a  relief  to  be  seated  inside  the  tram  and  free  of  Stac- 
pole  Terrace.  It  was  pleasant  to  change  cars  at  the  Nag's 
Head  and  behold  again  the  well-known  landscape  of  Highbury. 
A  pageant  of  childish  memories,  roused  by  the  sight  of  the 
broad  pavements  of  Islington,  was  marshalled  in  Jenny's 
brain.     Somehow  on  the  visits  she  had  paid  her  home  during 


Lugete^  0  Veneres  2^5 

the  last  year  these  aspects  were  obscured  by  the  consciousness 
of  no  longer  owning  any  right  to  them.  Now,  really  going 
home,  she  turned  into  Hagworth  Street  with  a  glow  of  pride 
at  seeing  again  its  sobriety  and  dignity  so  evident  after  the 
extravagant  stucco  and  Chinese  balconies  of  Camden  Town's 
terraces  and  squares.  There  was  Seventeen,  looking  just  the 
same,  prophetic  of  refuge  and  solid  comfort  to  the  exile.  She 
wondered  what  freak  of  folly  had  ever  made  her  fancy  home 
was  dingy  and  unpleasant,  home  that  held  her  bright-eyed 
mother's  laugh,  her  absurd  father  always  amusing,  and  her 
little  sister  May.  Home  was  an  enchanted  palace  with  more 
romance  in  each  dear  room  than  was  to  be  found  elsewhere 
in  the  world.  Home  was  alive  with  the  past  and  preserved 
the  links  which  bound  together  all  the  detached  episodes  of 
Jenny's  life.  As  she  turned  into  the  garden  that  once  had 
seemed  a  district,  as  she  rattled  the  letter-box — in  the  days 
of  her  estrangement  she  always  rang  the  bell — remorse  came 
welling  up  in  tears.  She  remembered  what  good  times  had 
been  recurrent  through  the  past,  tea-parties  and  pantomimes 
and  learning  to  ride  a  bicycle  in  the  warm  sunsets  of  June. 
And  in  the  house  opposite  nothing  was  altered,  not  a  fold  of 
the  lace  curtains,  not  a  leaf  of  the  dusty  aspedistra  that  took 
all  the  light  in  the  ground-floor  window. 

What  a  long  time  they  were  opening  the  door.  She  rattled 
the  letter-box  again  and  called  out  to  May.  It  was  like  com- 
ing home  after  summer  holidays  by  the  blue  sparkling  sea,  com- 
ing home  to  dolls  and  toys  and  the  long,  thin  garden  at  the 
back  which  from  absence  had  acquired  an  exaggerated  reputa- 
tion for  entertainment. 

Suddenly  May  opened  the  door,  peeping  round  over  the 
latch,  much  scared  apparently. 

"How  quick  you've  been,"  she  said, 

"Quick?"  repeated  Jenny. 

"Didn't  you  get  my  telegram?" 

"No,"  said  Jenny,  and  perceiving  that  May's  eyes  were  red 
with   weeping,   her   delightful   anticipation    was   clouded   with 


296 


Carnival 


dread.     "What  did   you   want  to  telegraph   for?     Not — not 
about  mother?" 

May  nodded. 

"She  isn't  dead?"  Jenny  gasped. 

"No,  she  isn't  dead.  But  she's  had  to  be  took  away.  You 
know.    To  an  asylum." 

"Go  on,"  said  Jenny.     "Oh,  what  a  dreadful  thing." 

"Well,  don't  stand  there,"  May  commanded.  "There's  been 
crowd  enough  round  here  this  morning  as  it  is." 

In  the  kitchen  she  unfolded  the  story.  It  seemed  that  for 
the  last  fortnight  their  mother  had  been  queer. 

"Oh,  she  was  funny,"  said  May.  "She  used  to  sit  moping 
over  the  fire — never  doing  nothing  and  saying  all  the  time  how 
her  head  hurt." 

"Didn't  dad  fetch  in  a  doctor?"  Jenny  demanded. 

"Not  at  first  he  wouldn't.  You  know  what  dad's  like.  I 
said  she  was  really  ill  and  he  kept  on  saying:  'Nonsense,  why 
look  at  me.  I'm  as  ill  as  I  can  be,  but  I  don't  want  no  doctor. 
I've  got  a  sort  of  a  paralytic  stroke  running  up  and  down  my 
arm  fit  to  drive  anybody  barmy.  And  here  am  I  going  oiif  to 
work  so  cheerful,  the  chaps  down  at  the  shop  say  they  don't 
know  how  I  does  it." 

"He  ought  to  be  bumped,"  Jenny  asserted  wrathfully.  "I 
only  wish  I'd  been  at  home  to  tell  him  off.  Go  on  about 
mother.     And  why  wasn't  I  sent  for  directly?"  she  asked. 

"Well,  I  did  think  about  fetching  you  back.  But  I  didn't 
really  think  myself  it  was  anything  much  at  first.  She  got 
worse  all  of  a  sudden  like.  She  took  a  most  shocking  dislike 
to  me  and  said  I  was  keeping  her  indoors  against  her  will, 
and  then  she  carried  on  about  you,  said  you  was — well,  I  don't 
know  what  she  didn't  say.  And  when  the  doctor  come,  she 
said  he  was  a  detective  and  asked  him  to  lock  you  and  me 
both  up,  said  she  had  the  most  wicked  daughters.  I  was  quiLc 
upset,  but  the  doctor  he  said  not  to  worry  as  it  was  often  like 
that  with  mad  people,  hating  the  ones  they  liked  best.  And  I 
said,  'She's  never  gone  mad?     Not  my  mother?   Oh,  whatever 


LugeUy  0  Ve?ieres  297 

shall  I  do?'  And  he  said,  'She  has,'  and  then  she  started  off 
screaming  enough  to  make  anyone  go  potty  to  hear  her,  and 
a  lot  of  boys  come  and  hung  about  the  gate  and  people  was 
looking  out  of  windows  and  the  greengrocer  was  ringing  all 
the  time  to  know  if  there  was  any  orders  this  morning." 

"When  was  all  this?"  asked  Jenny,  frozen  by  the  terrible 
narrative. 

"This  morning,  I  keep  telling  you." 

"Just  now?" 

"No,  early.  They  come  and  took  her  away  to  an  asylum 
somewhere  in  the  country  and  we  can  go  and  see  her  once  a 
fortnight.  But  she's  very  ill,  the  doctor  says — some  sort  of 
abscess  on  her  brain." 

"Where's  dad?" 

"He  went  round  to  the  'Arms.'  He  said  he  felt  quite 
shaky." 

Jenny  sat  mute  and  hopeless.  Would  her  mother  never 
recognize  her?  Would  she  die  in  the  belief  that  she  was 
neither  loved  nor  appreciated? 


Chapter  XXXI:  A  Document  in 
Madness 

ASHGATE  Asylum  was  a  great  gray  accumulation  of 
stone,  standing  at  the  head  of  a  wide  avenue  of 
^  beech  trees  on  a  chalky  ridge  of  the  Chiltern  Hills. 
Here  in  a  long  ward  lay  Mrs.  Raeburn,  fantasies  riding  day 
and  night  through  the  darkness  of  her  mind. 

Jenny  and  May  used  to  go  once  a  fortnight  to  visit  her  sad 
seclusion.  In  a  way  it  was  a  fruitless  errand  of  piety,  for  she 
never  recognized  her  daughters,  staring  at  them  from  viewless 
eyes.  Nobody  else  in  the  family  made  the  slow,  dreary  journey 
through  the  raw  spring  weather.  To  be  sure  every  fortnight 
Charlie  intended  to  go;  but  something  always  cropped  up  to 
prevent  him,  and  as  he  was  unable  to  realize  the  need  for 
instancy,  he  finally  made  up  his  mind  to  postpone  any  visit 
to  the  early  summer,  when,  as  he  optimistically  announced,  it 
would  no  doubt  be  time  to  fetch  his  wife  home  completely 
cured. 

Jenny  and  May  used  to  be  met  at  the  railway  station  by  the 
Asylum  brougham,  which  would  bear  them  at  a  jogging  pace 
up  the  straight  melancholy  avenue  and  set  them  down  by  the 
main  entrance  beside  which  hung  the  huge  bell-chain  whose 
clangor  seemed  to  wake  a  multitude  of  unclean  spirits.  Often, 
as  they  walked  nervously  over  the  parquet  of  the  lobby  ample 
as  a  cloister,  and  past  a  succession  of  cheerful  fire-places,  Jenny 
would  fancy  she  heard  distant  screams,  horrid  cries,  traveling 
down  the  echoing  corridors  that  branched  off  at  every  few 
paces.  The  nurse  who  was  directing  them  would  talk  away 
pleasantly  without  apparent  concern,  without  seeming  to 
notice  those  patients  allowed  a  measure  of  liberty.    Jenny  and 

298 


A  Document  in  Madness        299 

May,  however,  could  hardly  refrain  from  shrieking  out  in 
terror  as  they  shivered  by  these  furtive,  crouching  shapes  whose 
gaze  was  concentrated  on  things  not  seen  by  them.  In  the 
long  ward  at  whose  extreme  end  their  mother's  bed  was  situ- 
ated, these  alternations  of  embarrassment  and  fear  became  even 
more  acute.  Nearly  all  the  occupants  of  the  beds  had  shaved 
heads  which  gave  them,  especially  the  gray-haired  women,  a 
very  ghastly  appearance.  Many  of  them  would  mutter  aud- 
ible comments  on  the  two  girls  as  they  passed  along,  compar- 
ing them  extravagantly  to  angels  or  to  long-lost  friends  and 
relatives.  Some  would  whimper  in  the  terrible  imagination 
that  Jenny  and  May  had  arrived  to  hurt  them.  The  girls 
were  glad  when  the  battery  of  mad  eyes  was  passed  and  they 
could  stand  beside  their  mother's  bed. 

"Here  are  your  daughters  come  all  this  long  way  to  see 
you,  Mrs.  Raeburn,"  the  nurse  would  announce,  and  "Well, 
mother,"  or  "How  are  you  now,  mother?"  they  would  shyly 
inquire. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  could  not  recognize  them,  but  would  regard 
them  from  wide-open  eyes  that  betrayed  neither  friendliness 
nor  dislike. 

"Won't  you  say  you're  glad  to  see  them?" the  nurse  would  ask. 

Then  sometimes  Mrs.  Raeburn  would  bury  herself  in  the 
bedclothes  to  lie  motionless  until  they  had  gone,  or  sometimes 
she  would  count  on  her  fingers  mysterious  sums  and  ghostly 
numerals  comprehended  in  the  dim  mid-region  where  her  soul 
sojourned.  If  Jenny  or  May  looked  up  in  embarrassment, 
they  would  see  all  around  them  reasonless  heads,  some  smiling 
and  bobbing  and  beckoning,  some  grimacing  horribly,  and  every 
one,  save  the  listless  head  they  loved  best,  occupied  with  mad 
speculations  upon  the  identity  of  the  two  girls.  After  every 
visit,  as  hopelessly  they  were  leaving  the  ward,  the  nurse  would 
say: 

"I  expect  your  mother  will  be  better  next  time  you  come 

and  able  to  talk  a  bit." 

They  would  be  shown  into  a  stuffy  little  parlor  while  the 
20 


300  Carnival 

brougham  was  being  brought  round,  a  stuffy  little  room  smell- 
ing of  plum-cake  and  sherry.  In  the  window  hung  a  cage 
containing  an  old  green  paroquet  that  all  the  time  swore  softly 
to  itself  and  seemed  in  the  company  of  the  mad  to  have  lost 
its  own  clear  bird's  intelligence.  Then  back  they  would  drive 
along  the  straight,  wet  avenue  in  a  sound  of  twilight  gales, 
back  to  the  rain-soaked,  dreary  little  station  in  whose  silent 
waiting-room  they  would  sit,  crying  softly  to  themselves,  until 
the  Marylebone  train  came  in. 

These  visits  continued  for  six  weeks,  and  then,  on  the  fourth 
visit,  just  as  April  had  starred  the  Chilterns  with  primroses, 
the  nurse  whispered  while  they  were  walking  through  the 
ward's  distraught  glances: 

"I  think  your  mother  will  know  you  to-day." 

"Why?"  Jenny  whispered  back. 

"I  think  she  will,  somehow." 

Up  the  ward  they  went  with  hearts  beating  expectantly, 
while  the  voices  of  the  mad  folk  chattered  on  either  side. 
"Look  at  her  golden  hair."  "That's  St.  Michael.  Holy  Mi- 
chael, pray  for  us."  One  young  woman  with  pallid,  tear- 
washed  face  was  moaning:  "Why  can't  I  be  dead,  oh,  why 
can't  I  be  dead?"  And  an  old  woman,  gray  as  an  ash  tree, 
was  muttering  very  quickly  to  herself:  "Oh,  God  help  me; 
O,  dear  Lord  help  me!"  on  and  on  without  a  pause  in  the 
gibbering  reiteration.  Some  of  the  patients  waved  and  bobbed 
as  usual,  mopping  and  mowing  and  imparting  wild  secrets 
from  the  wild  land  in  which  they  lived,  and  others  scowled 
and  shook  their  twisted  fists.  This  time,  indeed,  their  mother 
did  look  different,  as  if  from  the  unknown  haunted  valleys  in 
which  her  soul  was  imprisoned  she  had  gained  some  mountain 
peak  with  a  view  of  home. 

"How  are  you,  mother?"  Jenny  asked. 

Mrs.  Raeburn  stared  at  her  perplexed  but  not  indifferent. 
Nor  did  she  try  to  hide  herself  as  usual.  Suddenly  she  spoke 
in  a  voice  that  to  her  daughters  seemed  like  the  voice  of  a 
ghost. 


A  Document  in  Madness        301 

"Is  that  little  May?" 

May's  ivory  cheeks  were  flushed  with  nervous  excitement 
as,  by  an  effort  of  brave  will,  she  drew  near  to  the  mad 
mother's  couch. 

"Yes,  it  is  little  May,"  said  Mrs.  Raeburn,  fondling  her 
affectionately.  "Poor  little  back.  Poor  little  thing.  What 
a  dreadful  misfortune.  My  fault,  all  my  fault.  I  shouldn't 
have  bothered  about  cleaning  up  so  much,  not  being  so  far 
gone  as  I  was.  Poor  little  May,  I'm  very  ill — my  head  is 
hurting  dreadfully." 

Suddenly  over  the  face  of  the  tortured  woman  came  a  won- 
derful change,  a  relief  not  mortal  by  its  radiance.  She  sank 
back  on  her  pillow  in  a  vision  of  consolation.  Jenny  leaned 
over  her,  "Mother,"  she  whispered,  "don't  you  know  me? 
It's  Jenny!  Jenny!"  she  cried  in  agony  of  longing  to  be  rec- 
ognized. 

"Jenny,"  repeated  her  mother,  as  if  trying  to  make  the 
name  fit  in  with  some  existing  fact  of  knowledge.  "Jenny?" 
she  murmured  more  faintly.     "No,  not  Jenny,  Cupid." 

"What's  she  mean?"  whispered  May. 

"She's  thinking  of  the  ballet.  It  was  last  time  she  saw  me 
on  the  stage." 

"Cupid,"  Mrs.  Raeburn  went  on.  "Yes,  it's  Cupid.  And 
Cupid  means  love.  Love!  God  bless  all  good  people.  It's 
a  fine  day.  Yes,  it  is  a  fine  day.  I'm  very  fond  of  this  win- 
dow, Carrie ;  I  think  it's  such  a  cheerful  view.  Look  at  those 
lovely  clouds.  What  a  way  you  can  see — right  beyond  the 
'Angel'  to  the  country.  Those  aunts  are  coming  again.  Tut, 
tut.  What  do  they  want  to  come  here  for?  They  sha'n't  have 
her,  they  sha'n't  have  my  Jenny.  Jenny!"  cried  Mrs.  Rae- 
burn, recognizing  at  last  her  best-loved  daughter.  "I  meant 
you  to  be  so  sweet  and  handsome,  my  Jenny!  Oh,  be  good, 
my  pretty  one,  my  dainty  one.  I  wish  you'd  see  about  that 
knob,  Charlie.    You  never  remember  to  get  a  new  one." 

Then,  though  her  eyes  were  rapturous  and  gay  again,  her 
mind  v.andered  further  afield  in  broken  sentences. 


3  o  2  Carnival 

"I  think  you'd  better  kiss  her  good-bye,"  the  nurse  said. 

Softly  each  daughter  kissed  that  mother  who  would  always 
remain  the  truest,  dearest  figure  in  their  lives. 

Downstairs  in  the  stuffy  little  parlor.  Dr.  Weever  inter- 
viewed them. 

"Whoever  allowed  you  two  girls  to  come  here?"  he  asked 
sharply,  "You've  no  business  to  visit  such  a  place.  You're 
too  young." 

"Will  our  mother  get  better?"  Jenny  asked. 

"Your  poor  mother  is  dying  and  you  should  be  glad,  because 
she  suffers  great  pain  all  the  time."  His  voice  was  harsh,  but, 
nevertheless,  full  of  tenderness. 

"Will  she  die  soon?"  Jenny  whispered.  May  was  sobbing 
to  herself. 

"Very  soon." 

"Then  I'd  better  tell  my  father  to  come  at  once?" 

"Certainly,  if  he  wants  to  see  his  wife  alive. 

Jenny  did  not  go  to  the  Orient  that  night,  and  when  her 
father  came  in,  she  told  him  how  near  it  was  to  the  end. 

"What,  dying?"  said  Charlie,  staggered  by  a  thought  which 
had  never  entered  his  mind.  "Dying?  Go  on,  don't  make  a 
game  of  serious  things  like  death." 

"She  is  dying.  And  the  doctor  said  if  you  wanted  to  see 
her  alive,  you  must  go  at  once." 

"I'll  go  to-night,"  said  Charlie,  feeling  helplessly  for  his 
best  hat. 

Just  then  came  a  double-knock  at  the  door. 

"That  means  she's  dead  already,"  said  Jenny  in  a  dull  mono- 
tone. 


Chapter  XXXII:  Pageantry  of  Death 

MR.  RAEBURN  determined  that,  if  there  had  some- 
times been  a  flaw  in  his  behavior  towards  his  wife 
when  alive,  there  should  be  no  doubt  about  his 
treatment  of  her  in  death.  Her  funeral  should  be  famous  for 
its  brass-adorned  oaken  coffin,  splendidly  new  in  the  gigantic 
hearse.  There  should  be  long-tailed  sable  horses  with  nodding 
plumes,  and  a  line  of  mourning  coaches.  Mutes  should  be 
everywhere  and  as  many  relatives  as  could  be  routed  out  with- 
in the  time.  Black  silks  and  satins,  jet  and  crape  and  somber 
stuffs  should  oppress  the  air,  and  Death  with  darkling  wings 
should  overshadow  Islington.  Many  mourners  were  gathered 
together  whose  personalities  had  never  played  any  part  in 
Jenny's  life;  but  others  arrived  who  had  in  the  past  helped 
her  development. 

Mrs.  Purkiss  came,  escorted  by  Claude  Purkiss  representing 
with  pale  face  and  yellow  silky  mustache  the  smugness  of 
himself  and  Percy  the  missionary.  Claude's  majority  would 
occur  in  May,  when  he  would  be  admitted  to  a  partnership 
in  the  business.  Already  a  bravery  of  gold  paint,  symbolizing 
his  gilt-edged  existence,  was  at  work  adding  "And  Son"  to 
"William  Purkiss."  Uncle  James  Threadgale  made  the  jour- 
ney from  Galton,  bringing  with  him  Mrs.  Threadgale  the 
second — a  cheerful  country  body  who  pressed  an  invitation 
upon  Jenny  and  May  to  visit  them.  Uncle  James  did  not 
seem  to  have  altered  much,  and  brought  up  with  him  a  roll 
of  fine  black  cloth  for  Jenny,  but  was  so  much  upset  on  real- 

303 


304  Carnival 

izing  he  had  omitted  May  from  his  thoughtfulness  that  im- 
mediately upon  his  arrival  he  slipped  out  to  buy  a  similar  roll 
for  her.  The  two  lodgers  were  present  as  a  mark  of  respect 
to  the  dead  woman  who  had  been  so  admirable  a  landlady; 
and  both  of  them,  with  kindly  tact,  announced  they  were  go- 
ing away  for  a  few  days.  Alfie,  of  course,  was  there  with  his 
fiancee,  whom  Jenny  somewhat  grudgingly  admitted  to  be 
very  smart.  Edie  came  with  the  children  and  her  husband. 
His  arrival  caused  a  slight  unpleasantness,  because  Alfie  said 
he  would  rather  not  go  at  all  to  the  funeral  than  ride  with 
Edie  and  Bert.  But  In  the  end  a  compromise  was  eliEected 
by  which  he  and  his  Amy  occupied  a  coach  alone.  After 
these  mourners  came  a  cortege  of  friends  and  cousins,  all  con- 
spicuously black,  all  intent  to  pay  their  homage  of  gloom. 

Jenny,  when  she  had  made  herself  ready,  sat  on  the  end  of 
the  bed   and  laughed. 

"I  can't  help  it.  May.  I  know  it's  wicked  of  me.  But  I 
can't  keep  from  laughing,  I  can't  really." 

"Well,  don't  let  any  of  them  downstairs  hear  you,"  begged 
May,  "because  they  wouldn't  understand." 

"It  doesn't  mean  I'm  not  sorry  about  mother  because  I 
laugh.  And  I  believe  she'd  be  the  first  to  understand.  Oh, 
May,  what  a  tale  she'd  have  made  of  it,  if  she'd  only  been 
alive  to  see  her  own  funeral.  She'd  have  kept  anyone  in  fits 
of  laughter  for  a  week." 

Even  during  the  slow  progress  of  the  pomp,  Jenny,  in  the 
first  coach  with  her  father  and  May,  was  continually  on  the 
verge  of  laughter  because,  just  as  by  a  great  effort  she  had 
managed  to  bring  her  emotions  under  control.  Aunt  Mabel 
had  tripped  over  her  skirt  and  dived  head  foremost  into  the 
carriage  that  was  to  hold  Claude,  Uncle  James  and  his  wife, 
and  herself.  Moreover,  to  make  matters  worse,  her  father's 
black  kid  gloves  kept  splitting  in  different  places  until,  by 
the  time  the  cemetery  was  reached,  his  hands  merely  looked  as 
if  they  were  plentifully  patched  with  court-plaster.  It  was 
blue  and   white   April   weather,   fit   for   cowslips   and    young 


Pageantry  of  Death  305 

lambs,  when  the  somber  people  darkened  the  vivid,  wet  grass 
round  the  grave.  During  the  solemnity  and  mournfulness  of 
the  burial  service  Jenny  stood  very  rigid  and  pale,  more  con- 
scious of  the  wind  sighing  through  the  yew  trees  than  of 
finality  and  irremediable  death.  She  was  neither  irritated  nor 
moved  by  the  sniffling  of  those  around  her.  The  fluttering  of 
the  priest's  surplice  and  the  tear-dabbled  handkerchiefs  occu- 
pied her  attention  less  than  the  figure  of  a  widow  looking  with 
sorrowful  admiration  at  a  tombstone  two  hundred  yards  away. 
She  did  not  advance  with  the  rest  to  stare  uselessly  down  on 
the  lowered  coffin.  The  last  words  had  been  said:  the  cere- 
mony was  done.  In  the  sudden  silver  wash  of  an  April  shower 
they  all  hurried  to  the  shelter  of  the  mourning  coaches.  Jenny 
looked  back  once,  and  under  the  arc  of  a  rainbow  saw  men 
with  gleaming  spades:  then  she,  too,  lost  in  the  dust  and  hang- 
ings of  the  heavy  equipage,  was  jogged  slowly  back  to  Is- 
lington. 

Funerals,  like  weddings,  are  commonly  employed  by  families 
to  weld  broken  links  in  the  chain  of  association  with  compari- 
sons of  progress  and  the  condolences  or  congratulations  of  a 
decade's  chance  and  change.  Jenny  could  not  bear  to  see  these 
relations  cawing  like  rooks  in  a  domestic  parliament.  She 
felt  their  presence  outraged  the  humor  of  the  dead  w^oman 
and  pictured  to  herself  how,  if  her  father  had  died,  her  mother 
would  have  sent  them  all  flapping  away.  She  did  not  want 
to  hear  her  mother  extolled  by  unappreciative  people.  She 
loathed  the  sight  of  her  sleek  cousin  Claude,  of  Alfie  glowering 
at  Edie,  of  her  future  sister-in-law  picking  pieces  of  white  cot- 
ton of?  her  skirt,  of  Edie  brushing  currants  from  the  side  of 
Norman's  mouth.  Finally,  when  she  was  compelled  to  listen 
to  her  father's  statement  of  his  susceptibility  to  the  knocks  of 
a  feather  on  receiving  the  news  of  his  wife's  death,  she  could 
bear  i«-  no  longer,  but  went  upstairs  to  her  bedroom,  whither 
Aunt  Mabel  presently  followed  in  search. 

"Ah,  Jenny,  this  is  a  sad  set  out  and  no  mistake,"   Mrs. 
Purkiss  began. 


3o6 


Carnival 


Jenny  did  not  deign  to  pay  any  attention,  but  looked  coldly 
out  of  the  window. 

"You  must  feel  quite  lost  without  her,"  continued  the  aunt, 
"though  to  be  sure  you  didn't  trouble  her  much  with  your 
company  this  last  year.  Poor  Florrie,  she  used  to  fret  about  it 
a  lot.  And  your  father  wasn't  much  use — such  an  undepend- 
able  sort  of  a  man  as  he  is.  Let's  all  hope,  now  he's  got  two 
motherless  girls  to  look  after,  he'll  be  a  bit  more 
strict." 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  keep  on  at  me,  Auntie,"  Jenny  pro- 
tested, "because  I  shall  be  most  shocking  rude  to  you  in  a 
minute,  which  I  shouldn't  like  to  be  at  such  a  time." 

"Tut — tut,  I  wish  you  could  control  that  temper  of  yours; 
but  there,  I  make  allowances  for  I  know  you  must  be  feeling 
it  all  very  much,  especially  as  you  must  blame  yourself  a 
bit." 

Jenny  turned  sharply  round  and  faced  her  aunt. 

"What  for?"  she  demanded. 

"Why,  for  everything.  Nothing'll  ever  convince  me  it 
wasn't  worry  drove  your  poor  mother  into  the  grave.  Your 
Uncle  William  said  the  same  when  he  heard  of  it.  He  was 
very  disappointed  to  think  he  couldn't  come  to  the  funeral; 
but,  as  he  said,  'what  with  Easter  almost  on  us  and  one  thing 
and  another,  I  really  haven't  got  the  time.'  " 

Mrs.  Purkiss  had  seated  herself  in  the  arm-chair  and  was 
creaking  away  in  comfortable  loquacity. 

"I  think  it's  nothing  more  than  wicked  to  talk  like  that," 
Jenny  declared  indignantly.  "And,  besides,  it's  silly,  because 
the  doctor  said  it   was  an  abscess,  nothing  else." 

"Ah,  well,  doctors  know  best,  I  daresay;  but  we  all  have 
a  right  to  our  opinions." 

"And  you  think  my  leaving  home  for  a  year  killed  my 
mother?" 

"I  don't  go  so  far  as  that.  What  I  said  was  you  were  a 
worry  to  her.  You  were  a  worry  when  you  were  born,  for  I 
was  there.     You  were  a  worry  when  you  would  go  on  the 


Pageantry  of  Death  307 


stage  against  whatever  I  said.  You  were  a  worry  when  you 
dyed  your  hair  and  when  you  kept  such  disgraceful  late  hours 
and  when  you  went  gallivanting  about  with  that  young  fellow. 
However,  I  don't  want  to  be  the  one  to  rub  in  uncomfortable 
facts  at  such  a  time.  What  I  came  up  to  ask  was  if  you 
wouldn't  like  to  come  and  stay  with  us  for  a  little  while,  you 
and  May.  You'll  have  to  get  an  extra  servant  to  look  after 
the  lodgers  if  your  father  intends  keeping  things  on  as  they 
were,  and  you'll  be  more  at  home  with  us." 

Mrs.  Purkiss  spoke  in  accents  almost  ghoulish,  with  a  pre- 
monitory relish  of  macabre  conversations. 

"Stay  with  you?"  repeated  Jenny.  "Stay  with  you?  What, 
and  hear  nothing  but  what  I  ought  to  have  done?  No,  thanks; 
May  and  I'll  stay  on  here." 

"You  wouldn't  disturb  your  Uncle  William,"  Mrs.  Purkiss 
continued  placidly,  "if  that's  what  you're  thinking  of.  You'd 
be  gone  to  the  theater  when  he  reads  his  paper  of  an  even- 
ing." 

"If  I  went  to  stay  anywhere,"  said  Jenny  emphatically,  "I 
should  go  and  stay  with  Uncle  James  at  Galton.  But  I'm  not, 
so  please  don't  keep  on,  because  I  don't  want  to  talk  to  any- 
body." 

Mrs.  Purkiss  sighed  compassionately  and  vowed  she  would 
forgive  her  nieces  under  the  circumstances,  would  even  spend 
the  evening  in  an  attempt  to  console  the  sad  household  of 
Hagworth  Street. 

"But  I  want  to  be  alone,  and  so  does  May." 

"Well,  I  always  used  to  say  you  was  funny  girls,  and  this 
proves  my  words  true.  Anyone  would  think  you'd  be  glad  to 
talk  about  your  poor  mother  to  her  only  sister.  But,  no,  girls 
nowadays  seem  to  have  no  civilized  feelings.  Slap-dashing 
around.  In  and  out.  Nothing  but  amuse  themselves,  the  un- 
cultivated things,  all  the  time.  No  wonder  the  papers  carry 
on  about  it.  But  I'm  not  going  to  stay  where  I'm  not  wanted 
and  don't  need  any  innuendives  to  go." 

Here  Mrs.  Purkiss  rose  from  the  chair  and,  having  in  a 


3o8 


Carnival 


majestic  sweep  of  watered  silk  attained  the  door,  paused  to 
deliver  one  severe  speculation. 

"If  you  treated  your  poor  mother  as  you  behave  to  your 
aunt,  I'm  not  surprised  she  got  ill.  If  my  Percy  or  my 
Claude  behaved  like  you — well,  there,  but  they  don't,  thank 
goodness." 

Jenny  listened  quite  unmoved  to  the  swishing  descent  of  her 
aunt.  She  was  merely  glad  to  think  her  rudeness  had  been 
effectual  in  driving  her  away,  and  followed  her  downstairs 
very  soon  in  order  to  guarantee  her  departure. 

One  by  one  the  funereal  visitors  went  their  ways.  One  by 
one  they  faded  into  the  sapphire  dusk  of  April.  Some  went  in 
sable  parties  like  dilatory  homing  cattle,  browsing  as  they  went 
on  anecdotes  of  the  dead.  On  the  tail  of  the  last  exit,  their 
father,  somewhat  anxiously,  as  if  afraid  of  filial  criticism, 
went  also.  He  sat  for  a  long  time,  as  he  told  them  after- 
wards, without  drinking  anything,  the  while  he  stared  at  his 
silk  hat  enmeshed  in  crape,  and  when  he  did  drink  he  called 
for  stout. 

The  two  girls  stayed  alone  in  the  parlor  with  little  heart 
to  light  the  gas,  with  little  desire  to  talk  over  the  mournful 
buzz  which  had  filled  the  house  all  day.  The  lodgers  being 
gone,  no  responsibility  of  general  illumination  rested  with 
Jenny  or  May.  Soon,  however,  they  moved  in  accord  to  the 
kitchen,  where  on  each  side  of  the  glowing  fire  they  listened 
to  the  singing  of  a  kettle  and  the  tick  of  the  American  clock. 
An  insistent  loneliness  penetrated  their  souls.  In  that  hour 
of  sorrow  and  twilight,  they  drew  nearer  to  one  another  than 
ever  before.  Outside  a  cat  was  wailing,  and  far  down  the 
road  a  dog,  true  to  superstition,  howled  at  intervals.  The 
kitchen  was  intolerably  changed  by  Mrs.  Raeburn's  absence. 
Jenny  suddenly  realized  how  lonely  May  must  have  been 
during  those  weeks  of  illness  and  suspense.  She  herself  had 
had  the  distractions  of  the  theater,  but  May  must  have  moped 
away  each  heavy  moment. 

"I  wonder  where  Ruby  is  now?"  said  Jenny  suddenly. 


Pageantry  of  Death  309 

"Fancy!     I  uonder." 

They  sighed.  The  old  house  in  Hagworth  Street  seemed, 
with  the  death  of  its  laughing  mistress,  to  have  lost  its  history, 
to  have  become  merely  one  of  a  dreary  row. 

"Oh,  May,  look,"  said  Jenny.  "There's  her  apron  never 
even  gone  to  the  wash." 

After  that  the  sisters  wept  quietly;  while  Venus  dogged  the 
young  moon  down  into  the  green  West,  and  darkness  shrouded 
the  gray  Islington  street. 


chapter  XXXIII:  Loose  Ends 

FOR  all  that  Jenny  was  so  contemptuous  of  her  aunt*s 
opinion  at  the  time  of  its  expression,  when  she  came 
to  weigh  its  truth  she  found  it  somewhat  disturbing. 
Was  an  abscess,  indeed,  the  sole  cause  of  her  mother's  madness 
and  death?  And  could  Aunt  Mabel  have  any  justification 
for  so  cruelly  hinting  at  a  less  obvious  cause?  Jenny  herself 
possessed  a  disconcerting  clarity  of  intuition  which  she  inher- 
ited from  her  mother,  who  might  have  divined  the  progress 
of  the  Danby  incident  and  brooded  over  it  too  profoundly 
in  the  absence  of  her  daughter.  Indeed,  she  might  have  been 
actually  goaded  into  sheer  madness  by  a  terrible  consciousness 
of  that  rainy  St.  Valentine's  night;  for  it  was  strange  that  her 
sanity  should  fly  forever  on  the  very  next  morning.  It  was 
horrid  to  think  that  all  night  long  her  mother,  kept  awake 
by  pain,  might  have  been  conscious  of  her  actions.  Yet  the 
doctor  had  so  confidently  blamed  the  abscess  for  everything. 
Moreover,  in  the  asylum  her  mother  had  seemed  just  as  much 
distressed  by  the  thought  of  May's  back  as  anything  else. 
Sensitiveness  to  her  mother's  feelings  had  led  Jenny  into  wreck- 
ing her  own  happiness  with  Maurice,  and  even  Fortune  could 
scarcely  be  so  fierce  as  to  drive  her  mother  mad  on  account  of 
the  pitiful  corollary  to  that  ruined  love.  Yet  it  might  be  so, 
and  if  it  were,  what  remorse  would  burden  her  mind  ever- 
lastingly. And  now  it  was  too  late  for  explanations.  Jenny, 
having  felt  all  through  her  mother's  life  an  inability  to  confide 
in  her  completely,  now  when  she  was  dead  developed  an  intense 
desire  to  pour  out  her  soul,  to  acquaint  her  with  every  detail 

310 


Loose  Ends  311 

of  experience  and  even  to  ascertain  if  her  own  passionate  ad- 
ventures had  been  foreshadowed  in  her  mother's  life. 

Meanwhile,  with  all  these  potential  horrors  of  culpable  ac- 
tions, there  was  the  practical  side  of  the  future  to  consider. 
In  a  week  the  lodgers  would  return,  and  a  servant  must  be 
found  at  once  to  help  May.  She  herself  would  do  as  much 
as  possible,  but  most  of  her  energy  was  sapped  by  the  theater. 
She  wished  her  father  had  the  smallest  conception  of  manage- 
ment. The  death  of  his  wife,  however,  seemed  to  have  de- 
stroyed what  small  equipment  of  resolution  he  possessed,  and 
the  "Masonic  Arms"  received  him  more  openly,  more  fre- 
quently than  ever. 

Jenny  debated  the  notion  of  leaving  the  Orient  and  applying 
all  her  mind  to  keeping  house;  but  it  was  too  late  for  her 
temperament  to  inure  itself  to  domesticity  without  the  spur  of 
something  sharper  than  mere  pecuniary  advantage.  Perhaps 
it  would  be  better  to  give  up  the  house  in  Hagworth  Street 
and  take  a  smaller  one,  where,  on  the  joint  earnings  of  herself 
and  her  father,  he  and  the  two  sisters  could  live  in  tolerable 
comfort.  Perhaps  she  might  even  accept  the  risk  of  setting 
up  house  with  May  alone.  But  thirty  shillings  a  week  was 
not  a  large  sum  for  two  girls,  one  of  whom  must  be  well 
dressed  and  able  to  hold  her  own  in  company  where  dress 
counted  for  a  good  deal.  The  more  she  thought  of  it,  the 
more  impossible  did  it  seem  to  give  up  the  theater.  Those 
few  days  of  absence  proved  how  intimately  her  existence  was 
wrapped  up  in  the  certainty  of  an  evening's  employment.  As 
the  time  had  drawn  on  for  going  down  to  the  Orient,  she 
had  become  very  restless  in  the  quiet  of  home.  However 
much  she  might  scoff  at  it,  there  was  wonderful  comfort  in 
the  assurance  of  a  cheerful  evening  of  dressing-room  gossip. 
Besides,  there  was  always  the  chance  of  an  interesting  stranger 
in  front  or  of  suddenly  being  called  upon  to  play  a  noticeable 
part,  though  that  pleasure  grew  more  and  more  insipid  all  the 
time.  There  was,  however,  still  a  certain  agreeable  reflection 
in  the  consciousness  of  looking  pretty  and  knowing  that  a  fc-.v 


312  Carnival 

eyes  every  night  remarked  her  face  and  figure.  And  even  if 
all  these  consolations  of  theatrical  existence  failed,  there  was 
a  very  great  satisfaction  in  making  up  and  leaving,  as  it  vi^ere, 
one's  own  discontented  body  behind. 

For  a  time  everything  went  on  as  usual  and  nobody  put 
forward  any  definite  proposal  involving  a  change  either  of 
residence  or  mode  of  life.  Jenny  began  to  think  she  was 
doomed  to  settle  down  into  perpetual  dullness  and  never  again 
to  be  launched  desperately  on  a  passionate  adventure.  She  was 
beginning  to  be  aware  how  easy  it  was  for  a  woman  to  belie 
the  temperament  of  her  youth  with  a  common-place  maturity. 
By  the  end  of  the  summer  their  father  had  already  advanced 
so  far  on  the  road  to  moral  and  financial  disintegration  as  to 
make  it  evident  to  Jenny  and  May  that  they  must  fend  fo  " 
themselves.  One  lodger,  an  old  clerk  in  a  Moorgate  firm  of 
solicitors,  had  already  left,  and  the  other,  a  Cornishman  work- 
ing in  a  dairy,  would  soon  be  carrying  the  result  of  his  com- 
mercial experience  back  to  his  native  land.  Neither  of  the 
girls  liked  the  prospect  of  new  lodgers  and  were  nervous  of 
affording  shelter  to  possible  thieves  or  murderers.  Nor  did 
May  in  particular  enjoy  the  supervision  of  the  servant  or  wres- 
tling with  the  slabs  of  unbaked  dough  which  heralded  her 
culinary  essays.  So  at  last  she  and  Jenny  decided  the  house 
was  altogether  too  large  and  that  they  must  give  notice  to 
quit. 

"And  aren't  I  to  give  no  opinion  on  the  subject  of  my  own 
house?"  asked  their  father  indignantly. 

"You?"  cried  Jenny;  "why  should  you?  You  don't  do 
nothing  but  drink  everything  away.  Why  should  we  slave 
ourselves  to  the   death   keeping  you?" 

"There's  daughters!"  Charlie  apostrophized.  "Yes,  daugh- 
ters is  all  very  nice  when  they're  small,  but  when  they  grow 
up,  they're  worse  than  wives.  It  comes  of  being  women,  I 
suppose."  And  Charlie,  as  if  sympathizing  with  his  earliest 
ancestor,  sighed  for  Eden.  "Look  here,  I  don't  want  to  take 
my  hook  from  this  house." 


Loose  Ends  313 

"All  right,  stay  on,  then,  stupid,"  May  advised;  "only  Jenny 
and  I  are  going  to  clear  off." 

"Stay  on  by  yourself,"  Jenny  continued  in  support  of  her 
sister,  "and  a  fine  house  it'll  be  in  a  year's  time.  No  one  able 
to  get  in  for  empty  bottles  and  people  all  around  thinking 
you've  opened  a  shooting-gallery,   I  should  say." 

"Now  don't  go  on,"  said  Charlie,  "because  I  want  to  have 
a  lay  down,  so  you  can  just  settle  as  you  like." 

It  was  Sunday  afternoon  and  no  problems  of  future  ar- 
rangements were  serious  enough  to  interrupt  a  lifelong  habit. 

"It's  no  good  talking  to  him,"  said  Jenny  scornfully;  "what 
we've  got  to  do  is  give  notice  sharp.  I  hate  this  house  now," 
she  added,  savagely  appraising  the  walls. 

So  It  was  settled  that  after  so  many  years  the  Raeburns 
should  leave  Hagworth  Street.  Charlie  made  no  more  at- 
tempts to  contest  the  decision,  and  acquiesced  almost  cheerfully 
when  he  suddenly  reflected  that  public-houses  were  always 
handy  wherever  anyone  went.  "Though,  for  all  that,"  he 
added,  "I  shall  miss  the  old  'Arms.'  " 

"Fancy,"  said  Jenny,  "who'd  have  thought  it?" 

On  the  following  Sunday  afternoon  Mr.  Corin,  the  remain- 
ing lodger,  came  down  to  interview  his  hostesses. 

"I  hear  you're  leaving  then,  Miss  Raeburn,"  he  said.  "How's 
that?" 

"It's  too  hard  work  for  my  sister,"  Jenny  answered  very 
politely.  "And  besides,  she  don't  care  for  it,  and  nor  don't 
I." 

"Well,  I'm  going  home  along  myself  in  November  month, 
I  believe,  or  I  should  have  been  sorry  to  leave  you.  What 
I  come  down  to  ask  about  was  whether  you'd  let  a  bedroom  to 
a  friend  of  mine  who's  coming  up  from  Cornwall  on  some 
law  business  in  connection  with  some  evidence  over  a  right  of 
way  or  something.  A  proper  old  mix  up,  I  believe  it  is.  But 
I  don't  suppose  they'll  keep  him  more  than  a  week,  and  he 
could  use  my  sitting-room." 

Jenny  looked   at   May. 


314  Carnival 

"Yes,  of  course,  let  him  come,"  said  the  housewife.  "But 
when  will  it  be?" 

"October  month,  I  believe,"  said  Mr.  Corin.  "That's  when 
the  witnesses  are  called  for." 

Everything  seemed  to  happen  in  October,  Jenny  thought. 
In  October  she  would  be  twenty-two.  How  time  was  flying, 
flying  with  age  creeping  on  fast.  In  the  dreariness  of  life's 
prospect,  even  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Corin's  friend  acquired  the 
importance  of  an  expected  event,  and,  though  neither  of  the 
sisters  broke  through  custom  so  far  as  to  discuss  him  before- 
hand, the  coming  of  Mr.  Corin's  friend  served  as  a  landmark 
in  the  calendar  like  Whitsuntide  or  Easter.  Meanwhile,  Mr. 
Raeburn,  as  if  aware  of  the  little  time  left  in  which  the  "Ma- 
sonic Arms"  could  be  enjoyed,  drank  more  and  more  as  the 
weeks  jogged  by. 

Summer  gales  marked  the  approach  of  autumn,  and  in 
the  gusty  twilights  that  were  perceptibly  earlier  every  day, 
Jenny  began  to  realize  how  everything  of  the  past  was  falling 
to  pieces.  There  was  an  epidemic  of  matrimony  at  the  thea- 
ter, which  included  in  the  number  of  its  victims  Maudie  Chap- 
man and  Elsie  Crauford.  Of  her  other  companions  Lilli  Ver- 
goe  had  left  the  ballet  and  taken  up  paid  secretarial  work  for 
some  misanthropic  society,  while  the  relations  between  Irene  and 
herself  had  been  as  grimly  frigid  ever  since  the  quarrel.  New 
girls  seemed  to  occupy  old  places  very  conspicuously,  and  all 
the  stability  of  existence  was  shaken  by  change.  Only  the 
Orient  itself  remained  immutably  vast  and  austere,  voracious 
of  young  life,  sternly  intolerant  of  fading  beauty,  antique  and 
unscrupulous. 

Jenny  was  becoming  conscious  of  the  wire  from  which  she 
was  suspended  for  the  world's  gaze,  jigged  hither  and  thither 
and  sometimes  allowed  to  fall  with  a  flop  when  fate  desired  a 
new  toy.  The  ennui  of  life  was  overwhelming.  A  gigantic 
futility  clouded  her  point  of  view,  making  effort,  enjoyment, 
sorrow,  disappointment,  success  equally  unimportant.  She  was 
not  induced  by  that  single  experience  of  St.  Valentine's  night 


Loose  Ends  315 

to  prosecute  her  curiosity.  This  may  have  been  because  pas- 
sion full-fed  was  a  disillusionment,  or  it  may  have  been  that 
the  shock  of  her  mother's  madness  appeared  to  her  as  a  tangible 
retribution.  Everything  was  dead.  Her  dancing,  like  her  life, 
had  become  automatic,  and  even  her  clothes  lasted  twice  as  long 
as  in  the  old  dajs. 

"I  can't  make  out  what's  happened  to  everybody,"  she  said 
to  May.  "No  fellows  ever  seem  to  come  round  the  stage 
door  now.  All  the  girls  have  either  got  married  or  booked 
up  that  way.  Nobody  ever  wants  to  have  larks  like  we  used 
to  have.  You  never  hardly  hear  anybody  laugh  in  the  dressing- 
room  now.  I  met  someone  the  other  day  who  knew  me  two 
years  ago  and  they  said  I'd  gone  as  thin  as  a  threepenny- 
bit." 

Jenny  meditated  upon  the  achievement  of  her  life  up  to 
date  and  wrote  it  down  a  failure.  Where  was  that  Prima 
Ballerina  Assoluta  \\ho  with  pitter-pat  of  silver  shoes  had 
danced  like  a  will-o'-the-wisp  before  her  imagination  long  ago? 
Where  was  that  Prima  Ballerina  with  double-fronted  house 
at  Ealing  or  Wimbledon,  and  meek,  adoring  husband  ?  Where, 
indeed,  were  all  elfm  promises  of  fame  and  fairy  hopes  of 
j'outh?  They  had  fled,  those  rainbow-winged  deceivers,  to- 
gether with  short  frocks  accordion-pleated  and  childhood's 
tumbled  hair.  Where  was  that  love  so  violent  and  invincible 
that  even  time  would  flee  in  dismay  before  its  progress? 
Where,  too,  was  the  laughter  that  once  had  seemed  illimitable 
and  immortal  ?  Now  there  was  nothing  so  gay  as  to  keep 
even  laughter  constant  to  Jenn\ 's  world.  For  her  there  was 
no  joy  in  lovely  transcience.  She  knew  by  heart  no  Horatian 
ode  which,  declaiming  against  time,  could  shatter  the  cruelty 
of  impermanence.  Without  an  edifice  of  love  or  religion  or 
art  or  philosophy,  there  seemed  no  refuge  from  decay. 

When  tile  body  finds  existence  a  mock,  the  mind  falls  back 
upon  its  intellectual  defences.  But  Jenny  had  neither  equip- 
ment, commissariat  or  strategic  position.  She  was  a  dim  figure 
on  the  arras  of  civilization,  faintlj-  mobile  in  the  stressful  winds 
21 


3i6 


Carnival 


of  life.  She  was  a  complex  decorative  achievement  and  should 
have  been  cherished  as  such.  Therefore  at  school  she  vi'as 
told  that  William  the  Conqueror  came  to  the  throne  in  1066, 
that  a  bay  is  a  large  gulf,  a  promontory  a  small  cape.  She  had 
been  a  plaything  for  the  turgid  experiments  by  parrots  in  edu- 
cation on  simple  facts,  facts  so  sublimely  simple  that  her  mind 
recorded  them  no  more  than  would  the  Venus  of  Milo  sit 
down  on  a  bench  before  a  pupil  teacher.  When  she  was  still 
a  child,  plastic  and  wonderful,  she  gave  her  dancing  and  beauty 
to  a  country  whose  inhabitants  are  just  as  content  to  watch 
two  dogs  fight  or  a  horse  die  in  the  street.  When  ambition 
withered  before  indifference,  she  set  out  to  express  herself  in 
love.  Her  early  failures  should  not  have  been  fatal,  would 
not  have  been  if  she  had  possessed  any  power  of  mental  recu- 
peration. But  even  if  William  the  Conqueror  had  won  his 
battle  at  Clacton,  the  bare  knowledge  of  it  would  not  have 
been  very  useful  to  Jenny.  Yet  she  might  have  been  useful  in  her 
beauty,  could  some  educationalist  have  perceived  in  her  youth 
that  God  as  well  as  Velasquez  can  create  a  thing  of  beauty. 
She  lived,  however,  in  a  period  of  enthusiastic  waste,  and  now 
brooded  over  the  realization  that  nothing  in  life  seemed  to 
recompense  one  for  living,  however  merrily,  however  splen- 
didly, the  adventure  began. 

Such  was  Jenny's  mood  when,  just  after  her  twenty-second 
birthday,  Mr.  Corin  announced  that  his  friend,  Mr.  Z.  Trew- 
hella,  would  arrive  in  three  days'  time. 


Chapter  XXXIV:    Mr.  Z.  Trewhella 

MR.  CORIN  was  anxious  to  make  his  friend's  visit 
to  London  as  pleasant  as  possible,  and  in  zeal  for 
the  enjoyment  of  Zachary  Trewhella  to  impress 
him  with  the  importance  and  knowingness  of  William  John 
Corin.  By  way  of  extirpating  at  once  any  feeling  of  solitude, 
he  was  careful  to  invite  Jenny  and  May  to  take  tea  with 
them  on  the  afternoon  following  Trewhella's  arrival.  The 
first-floor  sitting-room,  once  in.  the  occupation  of  Mr.  Vergoe, 
looked  very  different  nowadays;  and  indeed  no  longer  possessed 
much  character,  Corin's  decorative  extravagance  had  never 
carried  beyond  the  purchase  of  those  glassy  photographs  of 
City  scenes  in  which  from  a  confusion  of  traffic  rise  landmarks 
like  St.  Paul's  or  the  Royal  Exchange.  These,  destined  ulti- 
mately to  adorn  the  best  parlor  of  his  Cornish  home,  were  now 
propped  dismally  against  the  overmantel,  individually  obscured 
according  to  the  vagaries  of  the  servant's  dusting  by  a  plush- 
bound  photograph  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George.  The  walls  of  the 
room  were  handed  over  to  wall-paper  save  where  two  prints, 
billowy  with  damp,  showed  Mr.  Gladstone  looking  at  the 
back  of  Mr.  Spurgeon's  neck  over  some  tabulated  observations 
on   tuberculosis   among  cows. 

Zachary  Trewhella  did  more  than  share  his  friend's  sitting- 
room  :  he  occupied  it,  not  so  much  actively,  as  by  sheer  inani- 
mate force.  To  see  him  sitting  in  the  arm-chair  was  to  see  a 
bowlder  flung  down  in  a  flimsy  drawing-room.  He  was  a 
much  older  man  than  Corin,  probably  about  thirty-eight, 
though  Jenny  fancied  he  could  not  be  less  than  fifty.     His  eyes, 

317 


3i8 


Carnival 


very  deep  brown  and  closely  set,  had  a  twinkle  of  money,  and 
the  ragged  mustache  probably  concealed  a  cruel  and  avaricious 
mouth.  His  hands  were  rough  and  swollen  with  work  and 
weather:  his  neck  was  lean  and  his  pointed  ears  were  set  so  far 
back  as  to  give  his  high  cheek-bones  over  which  the  skin  was 
drawn  very  taut  a  prominence  of  feature  they  would  not  other- 
wise have  possessed.  He  belonged  to  a  common  type  of 
Cornish  farmer,  a  little  more  than  fox,  a  little  less  than  wolf, 
and  judged  by  mere  outward  appearance,  particularly  on  this 
occasion  of  ill-fitting  broadcloth  and  celluloid  collar,  he  would 
strike  the  casual  glance  as  mean  of  form  and  feature.  Yet 
he  radiated  force  continually  and  though  actually  a  small  man 
produced  an  effect  of  size  and  power.  It  was  impossible  defi- 
nitely to  predicate  the  direction  of  this  energy,  to  divine 
whether  it  would  find  concrete  expression  in  agriculture  or 
lust  or  avarice  or  religion.  Yet  so  vitally  did  it  exist  that 
from  the  moment  Trewhella  entered  Corin's  insignificant  apart- 
ment, the  room  was  haunted  by  him,  and  not  merely  the  room, 
but  Hagworth  Street  itself  and  even  Islington. 

"Well,  Zack,"  said  Mr.  Corin,  winking  at  the  two  girls, 
and  for  effect  lapsing  into  broadest  dialect.  "What  du'ee  thenk 
o'  Lonnon,  buoy,  grand  auld  plaace  'tis,  I  b'liv." 

"I  don't  know  as  I've  thought  a  brae  lot  about  it,"  said 
Zack. 

"He's  all  the  time  brooding  about  this  right  of  way,"  Mr. 
Corin  explained. 

Jenny  and  May  were  frankly  puzzled  by  Trewhella.  He 
represented  to  them  a  new  element.  Jenny  felt  she  had  re- 
ceived an  impression  incommunicable  by  description,  as  if, 
having  been  flung  suddenly  into  a  room,  one  were  to  try  to 
record  the  experience  in  terms  of  the  underground  railway. 

The  farmer  himself  did  not  pay  any  attention  to  either 
of  the  girls,  so  that  Jenny  was  compelled  to  gain  her  impres- 
sion of  him  as  if  he  were  an  animal  in  a  cage,  funny  or  dull 
or  interesting,  but  always  remote.  She  was  content  to  watch 
him  eat  with  a  detached  curiosity  that  prevented  her  from  be- 


Mr.  Z,  Trewhella  319 

ing  irritated  by  his  deliberation,  or,  after  noisy  drinking,  by 
the  colossal  fist  that  smudged  his  lips  dry. 

"Ess,"  Trewhella  announced  after  swallowing  a  large 
mouthful  of  plum-cake.  "Ess,  I  shall  be  brim  glad  when  I'm 
back  to  Trewinnard.  'Tis  my  belief  the  devil's  the  only  one 
to  show  a  Cornishman  round  London  fittee." 

Mr.  Corin  laughed  at  this  sardonic  witticism,  but  said  he 
was  going  to  have  a  jolly  good  try  at  showing  Zack  the  sights 
of  the  town  that  very  night. 

"You  ought  to  take  him  to  the  Orient,"  May  advised. 

"By  gosh,  and  that's  a  proper  notion,"  said  Corin,  slapping 
his  thigh.     "That's  you  and  me  to-night,  Zack." 

"What's  the   Orrient?"   inquired  Trewhella. 

"Haven't  you  never  heard  of  the  Orient?"  Jenny  gasped, 
her  sense  of  fitness  disturbed  by  such  an  abyss  of  ignor- 
ance. 

"No,  my  dear,  I  never  have,"  replied  Trewhella,  and  for 
the  first  time  looked  Jenny  full  in  the  face. 

"I  dance  there,"  she  told  him,  "in  the  ballet." 

The  Cornishman  looked  round  to  his  friend  for  an  explana- 
tion. 

"That's  all  right,  boy,"  said  Corin  jovially.  "You'll  know 
soon  enough  what  dancing  is.  You  and  me's  going  there  to- 
night." 

Trewhella  grunted,  looked  at  Jenny  again  and  said  after  a 
pause:  "Well,  being  in  the  city,  I  suppose  we  must  follow 
city  manners,  but  darn'ee,  I  never  thought  to  go  gazing  at 
dancing  like  maidens   at  St.   Peter's  Tide." 

Corin  chuckled  at  the  easy  defeat  of  the  farmer's  prejudice, 
and  said  he  meant  to  open  old  Zack's  eyes  before  he  went  back 
to  Cornwall,  and  no  mistake. 

Soon  after  this  the  two  girls  left  the  tea-party,  and  while 
Jenny  dressed  herself  to  go  down  to  the  theater,  they  dis- 
cussed Mr.  Z.  Trewhella. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  anyone  talk  so  funny.  Oh,  May,  I 
nearly  split  myself  for  laughing.     Oh,  he  talks  like  a  coon." 


320  Carnival 

"I  thought  he  talked  like  a  gramaphone  that  wants  winding 
up,"  said  May. 

"But  what  a  dreadful  thing  to  talk  like  that.  Poor  man, 
it's  a  shame  to  laugh  at  him,  though,  because  he  can't  help  it." 
Jenny  was  twisting  round  to  see  that  no  dust  lay  on  the  back 
of  her  coat. 

"I  wonder  what  he'll  think  of  you  dancing,"  May  specu- 
lated.    "But  I  don't  expect  he'll  recognize  you." 

"I  think  he  will,  then,"  contradicted  Jenny  as  she  dabbed 
her  nose  with  the  powder-puff.  "Perhaps  you  never  noticed, 
but  he  looked  at  me  very  funny  once  or  twice." 

"Did  he?"  said  May.  "Well,  I'm  jolly  glad  it  wasn't  me 
or  I  should  have  had  a  fit  of  the  giggles." 

Presently,  under  the  scud  of  shifting  clouds,  Jenny  hurried 
through  the  windy  shadows  of  twilight  down  to  the  warm 
theater.  When  she  was  back  in  the  bedroom  that  night,  May 
said: 

Mr.  Trewhella's  struck  on  you." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"He  is — honest.     He  raved  about  you." 

"Shut  up." 

"He  went  to  see  you  dance  and  he's  going  again  to-morrow 
night  and  all  the  time  he's  in  London,  and  he  wants  you  and 
me  to  go  to  tea  again  to-morrow." 

"I've  properly  got  off,"  laughed  Jenny,  as  down  tumbled  her 
fair  hair,  and  with  a  single  movement  she  shook  it  free  of  a 
day's  confinement. 

"Do  you  like  him?"  May  inquired. 

"Yes,  all  right.  Only  his  clothes  smell  funny.  Lavingder 
or  something.  I  suppose  they've  been  put  away  for  donkey's 
years.  Well,  get  on  with  it,  young  May,  and  tell  us  some 
more  about  this  young  dream." 

"You  date,"  laughed  her  sister.  "But  don't  make  fun  of 
the  poor  mnn." 

"Oh,  well,  he  is  an  early  turn,  now  isn't  he,  Maisie?  What 
did  dad  say  to  him?" 


Mr,  Z,  Trewhella  321 

"Oh,  dad.  If  beer  came  from  cows,  dad  would  have  had 
plenty  to  say." 

"You're  right,"  agreed  Jenny,  standing  rosy-footed  in  her 
nightgown.  She  gave  one  critical  look  at  her  image  in  the 
glass,  as  if  in  dreams  she  meant  to  meet  a  lover,  then  put  out 
all  lights  and  with  one  leap  buried  herself  in  the  bedclothes. 

On  the  following  afternoon  during  tea  Mr.  Trewhella 
scarcely  took  his  eyes  off  Jenny. 

"Well,  how  did  you  enjoy  the  ballet?"  she  inquired. 

"I  don't  know  so  much  about  the  ballet.  I  was  all  tlie  time 
looking  for  one  maid  in  that  great  old  magic  lantern  of  a  place, 
and  when  I  found  her  I  couldn't  see  her  so  well  as  I  wanted. 
But,  darn'ee,  I  will  to-night.     William  John!" 

"Zack!" 

"William  John,  if  it  do  cost  a  golden  guinea  to  sit  down 
along  to-night,  we'm  going  to  sit  in  they  handsome  chairs 
close  up  to  the  harmony." 

"That's  all  right,  boy,"  chuckled  Corin.  "We'll  sit  in  the 
front  row." 

"That's  better,"  sighed  Trewhella,  much  relieved  by  this 
announcement. 

When  Jenny  said  she  must  go  and  get  ready  for  the  thea- 
ter, the  farmer  asked  if  he  might  put  her  along  a  bit  of  the  way. 

"If  you  like,"  she  told  him.  "Only  I  hope  you  walk  quicker 
than  what  you  eat,  because  I  shall  be  most  shocking  late  if 
on  t. 

Trewhella  said  he  would  walk  just  as  quick  as  she'd  a  mind 
to;  but  Jenny  insured  herself  against  lateness  by  getting  ready 
half  an  hour  earlier  than   usual. 

They  presented  a  curious  contrast,  the  two  of  them  walking 
down  Hagworth  Street.  There  was  a  certain  wildness  '\\\  the 
autumnal  evening  that  made  Trewhella  look  less  out  of  keep- 
ing with  the  city.  All  the  chimneys  were  flying  streamers  of 
smoke.  Heavy  clouds,  streaked  with  dull  red  veins,  were  mov- 
ing down  the  sky,  and  the  street  corners  looked  \ery  bare  in 
the  wind.     Trewhella  stalked  on  with  his  long,  powerful  body 


3  2  2  Carnival 


bent  forward  from  crooked  legs.  His  twisted  stick  struck 
the  pavement  at  regular  intervals:  his  Ascot  tie  of  red  satin 
gleamed  in  the  last  rays  of  the  sunset.  Beside  him  was  Jenny, 
not  much  shorter  actually,  but  seeming  close  to  him  very  tiny 
indeed. 

"Look,  you  maid,"  said  Trewhella  when,  after  a  silent  hun- 
dred yards,  they  were  clear  of  the  house,  "I  never  seed  no  such 
a  thing  as  your  dancing  before.  I  believe  the  devil  has  gotten 
hold  of  me  at  last.  I  sat  up  there  almost  falling  down  atop 
of  'ee?  Yet  I'm  the  man  who's  sat  thinking  of  Heaven 
ever  since  I  heard  tell  of  it.  Look,  you  maid,  will  you  be 
marrying  me  this  week  and  coming  home  along  back  to  Corn- 
wall ?" 

"What?"  cried  Jenny.     "Marry  you?" 

"Now  don't  be  in  a  frizz  to  say  no  all  at  once.  But  hirk 
what  I  do  tell  'ee.  I've  got  a  handsome  lill  farm  set  proper 
and  lew — Bochym  we  do  call  it.  And  I've  got  a  pretty  lill 
house  all  a-shining  wi'  brass  and  all  a-nodding  wi'  roses  and 
geraniums  where  a  maid  could  sit  looking  out  of  the  window 
like  a  dove  if  she'd  a  mind  to,  smelling  the  stocks  and  lilies  in 
the  garden  and  harking  to  the  sea  calling  from  the  sands." 

"Well,  don't  keep  on  so  fast,"  Jenny  interrupted.  "You 
don't  think  I'd  marry  anyone  I'd  only  just  seen?  And  besides 
you  don't  hardly  know  me." 

"But  I  do  know  you're  the  only  maid  for  me,  and  I  can't 
go  back  without  you.  That's  where  it's  to.  When  I've  been 
preaching  and  sweating  away  down  to  the  chapel,  when  I've 
been  shouting  and  roaring  about  the  glories  of  Heaven,  I've 
all  the  time  been  thinking  of  maids'  lips  and  wondering  how 
I  didn't  care  to  go  courting.     I'm  going  to  have  'ee." 

"Thanks,"  said  Jenny  loftily.  "I  seem  to  come  on  with 
the  crowd  in  this  scene.     I  don't  want  to  marry  you." 

"I  don't  know  how  you  can  be  so  crool-hearted  as  to  think 
of  leaving  me  go  back  home  along  and  whenever  I  see  the 
corn  in  summer-time  keep  thinking  of  your  hair." 

"But  I'm  not  struck  on  you,"  said  Jenny.    "You're  too  old. 


Mr,  Z,  Trewhella  323 

Besides,  it's  soppy  to  talk  like  that  about  my  hair  when  you've 
never  hardly  seen  it  at  all." 

Trewhella  seemed  oblivious  to  everything  but  the  prose- 
cution of  his  suit. 

"There's  hundreds  of  maids  have  said  a  man  was  too  old. 
And  what  is  love?  Why,  'tis  nothing  but  a  great  fire  burn- 
ing and  burning  in  a  man's  heart,  and  if  'tis  hot  enough,  it 
will  light  a  fire  in  the  woman's  heart." 

"Ah,  but  supposing,  like  me,  she's  got  a  fireproof  curtain?" 
said  Jenny  flippantly. 

Trewhella  looked  at  her,  puzzled  by  this  counter.  He  per- 
ceived, however,  it  was  hostile  to  his  argument  and  went  on 
more  earnestly  than  before: 

"Yes,  but  you  wouldn't  have  me  lusting  after  the  flesh.  I 
that  found  the  Lord  years  ago  and  kept  Him  ever  since.  I 
that  showed  fruits  of  the  Spirit  before  any  of  the  chaps  in 
the  village.  I  that  scat  up  two  apple  orchards  so  as  they 
shouldn't  go  to  make  cider  and  drunkenness.  You  wouldn't 
have  me  live  all  my  life  in  whorage  of  thoughts." 

"Who  cares  what  you  do?"  said  Jenny,  getting  bored  under 
this  weight  of  verbiage.     "I  don't  want  to  marry." 

"I've  been  too  quick,"  said  Trewhella.  "I've  been  led  away 
by  my  preacher's  tongue.  But  you'll  see  me  there  in  front  of 
'ee  to-night,"  he  almost  shouted.  "You'll  see  me  there  gazing 
at  'ee,  and  I  don't  belong  to  be  bested  by  nothing.  Maid  nor 
bullock.  Good  night.  Miss  Raeburn,  I'll  be  looking  after 
William   John." 

"Good  night,"  said  Jenny  pleasantly,  relieved  by  his  depar- 
ture.    "I'll  see  you  in  front,  then." 

She  thought  as  she  said  this  how  utterly  inappropriate  Tre- 
whella and  Corin  would  look  in  the  stalls  of  the  Orient.  She 
fancied  how  the  girls  would  laugh  and  ask  in  the  wings  what 
those  strange  figures  could  be.  It  was  lucky  none  of  them 
were  aware  they  lodged  in  Hagworth  Street.  What  a  terri- 
ble thing  it  would  be  if  it  leaked  out  that  such  unnatural- 
looking  men,   with  such   a  funny  way  of  talking,   lodged   at 


324  Carnival 

Jenny  Pearl's.  The  thought  of  the  revelation  made  her  blush. 
Yet  Corin  had  not  seemed  extraordinary  before  the  arrival 
of  his  friend.  It  was  Trewhella  who  had  infected  them 
both  with  strangeness.  He  had  an  intensity,  a  dignity  that 
made  him  difficult  to  subdue  with  flippancy.  He  never  seemed 
to  laugh  at  her  retorts,  and  yet  underneath  that  ragged  mus- 
tache he  seemed  to  be  smiling  to  himself  all  the  time.  And 
what  terrible  hands  he  had.  More  like  animals  than  hands. 
When  Jenny  caught  his  eye  glinting  down  in  the  stalls,  she 
wished  she  were  playing  anything  but  an  Ephesian  flute-girl, 
for  Ephesian  flute-girls,  owning  a  happier  climate,  dressed 
very  lightly. 

"He  sat  there  looking  me  through  and  through,"  she  told 
May,  "till  I  nearly  run  off  to  the  side.  He  stared  at  me  just 
like  our  cat  stares  at  the  canary  in  the  window  next  door." 

"It's  not  a  canary,"   May  corrected.     "It's  a  goldfinch." 

"Now  don't  be  silly,  and  shut  up,  you  and  your  goldfinches. 
Who  cares  if  it's  a  parrot?  You  know  what  I  mean.  Tell 
me  what  I'm  to  do  about  Borneo  Bill." 

May  began  to  laugh. 

"Well,  he  is.     He's  like  the  song." 

On  the  next  day  Mr.  Corin  interviewed  Jenny  about  the 
prospects  of  his  friend's  suit. 

"You  know.  Miss  Raeburn,  he's  very  serious  about  it,  is 
Zack.  He's  accounted  quite  a  rich  man  down  west.  'Tis  his 
own  farm  freehold — and  he's  asked  Mr.  Raeburn's  permission." 

"Well,  that  wins  it!"  Jenny  proclaimed.  "Asked  my 
father's  permission?  What  for?  What's  it  got  to  do  with  him 
who  I  marry?  Thanks,  I  marry  who  I  please.  What  a 
liberty!" 

Mr.  Corin  looked  apologetic. 

"I  only  told  you  that  so  as  you  shouldn't  think  there  was 
anything  funny  about  it.  I  never  saw  a  man  so  dead  in 
earnest,  and  he's  a  religious  man,  too." 

"Well,  I'm  not,"  Jenny  retorted.  "I  don't  see  what  re- 
ligion's got  to  do  with  marrying." 


Mr.  Z,  Trewhella  325 

"You  come  to  think  of  it,  Miss  Raeburn,  it's  not  such  a  bad 
offer.  I  don't  believe  you  could  meet  with  a  safer  man  than 
Zack.  I  suppose  if  he's  worth  a  dollar,  he's  worth  three  hun- 
dred pounds  a  year,  and  that's  comfortable  living  in  Corn- 
wall." 

"But  he's  old  enough  to  be  my  father,"  Jenny  contended, 

"He  looks  older  than  what  he  is,"  continued  Mr.  Corin 
plausibly.     "Actually  he  isn't  much  more  than  thirty-five." 

"Yes,  then  he  woke  up,"  scoffed  Jenny. 

"No,  really  he  isn't,"  Corin  persisted.  "But  he's  been  a 
big  worker  all  his  life.  Thunder  and  sleet  never  troubled 
him.  And,  looking  at  it  this  way,  you  know  the  saying, 
'  'Tis  better  to  be  an  old  man's  darling  than  a  young  man's 
slave.'  " 

"But  I  don't  like  him — not  in  the  way  that  I  could  marry 
him."  Jenny  had  a  terrible  feeling  of  battered  down  defenses, 
of  some  inexorable  force  advancing  against  her. 

"Yes;  but  you  might  grow  to  like  him.  It's  happened  be- 
fore now  with  maids.  And  look,  he's  willing  for  'ee  to  have 
your  sister  to  live  with  jou,  and  that  means  providing  for  her. 
What  'ud  become  of  her  if  anything  happened  to  you  or 
your  father?" 

"She  could  go  and  live  with  my  sister  Edie  or  my  brother." 

"Yes;  but  wx  all  know  what  that  may  mean,  whereas  if 
she  comes  to  live  with  you,  Zack  will  be  so  proud  of  her  as  if 
she  were  his  very  own  sister." 

Jenny  was  staggered  by  the  pertinacity  of  this  wooing  and 
made  a  slip. 

"Yes;  but  when  does  he  want  to  marry  me?" 

The  pleader  was  not  slow  to  take  hold  of  this. 

"Then  you'll  consider  it,  eh?" 

"I  never  said  so,"  Jenny  replied  in  a  quick  attempt  to  re- 
trieve her  blunder. 

"Well,  he  wants  to  marry  you  now  at  once." 

"But  I  couldn't.  For  one  thing  I  couldn't  leave  the  theater 
all  in  a  hurr\-.     It  would  look  so  funnv.     Besides " 


326 


Carnival 


"Well,  Zack  said,  'Don't  worry  the  maid,  William  John, 
but  leave  her  to  find  out  her  own  mind  and  I'll  bide  here 
along  till  she  do  know  it." 

Mr.  Corin  dwelt  on  the  magnanimity  of  his  friend  and  hav- 
ing, as  he  thought,  made  a  skillful  attack  on  Jenny's  preju- 
dice, retired  to  let  his  arguments  sink  in.  He  had  effected 
even  more  than  he  imagined  by  his  cool  statement  of  the  pro- 
posal. Put  forward  by  him,  devoid  of  all  passion  and  eccen- 
tricity of  language,  it  seemed  a  very  business-like  affair.  Jenny 
began  to  think  how  such  a  step  would  solve  the  problem  of 
taking  a  new  house,  of  moving  the  furniture,  of  providing  for 
May,  of  getting  rid  of  her  father,  now  daily  more  irritating 
on  account  of  his  besotted  manner  of  life.  All  the  girls  at 
the  theater  were  marrying.  It  was  in  the  air.  She  was  grow- 
ing old.  The  time  of  romantic  adventure  was  gone.  The 
carnival  was  petering  out  in  a  gloomy  banality.  Change  was 
imminent  in  every  direction.  Why  not  make  a  clean  sweep 
of  the  old  life  and,  escaping  to  some  strange  new  existence, 
create  a  fresh  illusion  of  pleasure?  What  would  her  mother 
have  said  to  this  offer?  Jenny  could  not  help  feeling  she 
would  have  regarded  it  with  very  friendly  eyes,  would  have 
urged  strongly  its  acceptance.  Why,  she  had  even  been 
anxious  for  Jenny  to  make  a  match  with  a  baker;  and  here 
was  a  prosperous  man,  a  religious  man,  a  steady  man,  invit- 
ing her  to  be  mistress  almost  of  a  country  estate.  She  wished 
that  Mr.  Z.  Trewhella  were  not  so  willing  to  wait.  It  made 
him  appear  so  sure,  so  inevitable.  And  the  time  for  moving 
was  getting  very  near.  Change  was  in  the  air,  Jenny  thought 
she  would  sound  May's  views  on  the  future  in  case  of  sudden 
accident  or  any  deliberate  alteration  of  the  present  mode  of 
life. 

"Where  would  you  live  if  I  went  away?"  she  asked. 

"What  do  you  mean  ?"  said  May,  looking  very  much  alarmed 
by  the  prospect,  and  turning  sharply  on  her  pillow. 

"I  mean  who  would  you  live  with?    Alfie  or  Edie?" 

"Neither,"    May  affirmed   emphatically. 


Mr,  Z.  Trewhella  327 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  I  wouldn't." 

This  reply,  however  unsatisfactory  it  might  have  been  to 
a  logician,  was  to  Jenny  the  powerfullest  imaginable. 

"But  supposing  I  got  married?"  she  went  on. 

"Well,  couldn't  I  live  with  you?  No,  I  suppose  I  couldn't," 
said  May  dejectedly.  "I'm  a  lot  of  good,  ain't  I?  Yes,  you 
grumble  sometimes,  but  what  about  if  you  was  like  me?" 

Jenny  had  always  accepted  May's  cheerfulness  under  physi- 
cal disability  so  much  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  a  complaint  from 
her  came  with  a  shock.  More  than  ever  did  the  best  course 
for  May  seem  the  right  course  for  Jenny.  She  recalled  how 
years  ago  her  mother  had  intrusted  May  to  her  when  a  child. 
How  much  more  sacred  and  binding  was  that  trust  now  that 
she  who  imposed  it  was  dead. 

"Don't  get  excited,"  said  Jenny,  petting  her  little  sister. 
"Whatever  I  done  or  wherever  I  went,  you  should  come  along 
01  me. 

May,  not  to  display  emotion,  said: 

"Well,  you  needn't  go  sticking  your  great  knee  in  my  back." 
But  Jenny  knew^  by  the  quickness  with  which  she  fell  asleep 
that  May  was  happy  and  secure. 

"I'm  going  to  have  a  rare  old  rout  out  this  morning," 
Jenny  announced  when  she  woke  up  to  the  sight  of  an  appar- 
ently infinitely  w^et  day,  a  drench  in  a  gray  monotone  of  sky 
from  dawn  to  nightfall. 

About  eleven  o'clock  the  rout  out  began  and  gradually  the 
accumulated  minor  rubbish  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  was 
stacked  in  various  heaps  all  over  the  house. 

"What  about  mother's  things?"  May  inquired. 

"I'm  going  to  put  them  all  away  in  a  box.  I'm  going 
through  them  this  afternoon,"  said  Jenny. 

"I've  promised  to  go  out  and  see  some  friends  of  mine  this 
afternoon,"  said  May.  "So  I'll  leave  them  to  you  because 
they  aren't  tiring." 

"All  right,  dear." 


328 


Carnival 


After  dinner  when  her  sister  had  gone  out  and  Jenny,  ex- 
cept for  the  servant,  was  alone  in  the  old  house,  she  began  to 
sort  her  mother's  relics.  One  after  another  they  were  put 
away  in  a  big  trunk  still  plentifully  plastered  with  railway 
labels  of  Clacton  G.E.R.  and  Liverpool  Street,  varied  occasion- 
ally by  records  of  Great  Yarmouth.  Steadily  the  contents  of 
the  box  neared  the  top  with  ordered  layers  of  silk  dresses  and 
mantles.  Hidden  carefully  in  their  folds  were  old  prayer 
books  and  thimbles,  ostrich  plumes  and  lace.  Jenny  debated 
for  a  moment  whether  to  bury  an  old  wax  doll  with  colorless 
face  and  fragile  baby-robes  of  lawn — a  valuable  old  doll,  the 
plaything  in  childhood  of  the  wife  of  Frederick  Horner,  the 
chemist. 

"I  suppose  by  rights  Alfie  or  Edie  ought  to  have  that," 
Jenny  thought.  "But  it's  too  old  for  kids  to  knock  about.  If 
they  remember  about  it,  they  can  have  it." 

So  the  old  doll  was  relegated  to  a  lavendered  tomb.  "After 
all,"  thought  Jenny,  "we  wasn't  even  allowed  to  play  with 
it.     Only  just  hold  it  gently  for  a  Sunday  treat." 

Next  a  pile  of  old  housekeeping  books  figured  all  over  in 
her  mother's  neat  thin  handwriting  were  tied  round  with  a  bit 
of  blue  ribbon  and  put  away.  Then  came  the  problem  of 
certain  pieces  of  china  which  Mrs.  Raeburn  when  alive  had 
cherished.  Now  that  she  was  dead  Jenny  felt  they  should  be 
put  away  with  other  treasures.  These  ornaments  were  vital 
with  the  pride  of  possession  in  which  her  mother  had  en- 
shrined them  and  should  not  be  liable  to  the  humiliation  of 
careless  treatment. 

At  last  only  the  contents  of  the  desk  remained,  and  Jenny 
thought  it  would  be  right  to  look  carefully  through  these  that 
nothing  which  her  mother  would  have  wished  to  be  destroyed 
should  be  preserved  for  impertinent  curiosity.  The  desk  smelt 
strongly  of  the  cedar-wood  with  which  it  was  lined,  and  the 
perfume  was  powerfully  evocative  of  the  emotions  of  childish 
inquisitiveness  and  awe  which  it  had  once  always  provoked. 
Here  were  the  crackling  lettc..,  of  die  old  Miss  Homers,  and 


Mr.  Z.  Trewhella  329 

for  the  first  time  Jenny  read  the  full  history  of  her  proposed 
adoption.  "Good  job  that  idea  got  crushed,"  she  thought,  ap- 
palled by  the  profusion  of  religious  sentiment  and  half  annoyed 
by  their  austere  prophecies  and  savage  commentaries  upon  the 
baby  Jenny.  In  addition  to  these  letters  there  was  a  faded 
photograph  of  her  parents  in  earliest  matrimony  and  another 
photograph  of  someone  she  did  not  recognize — a  man  with  a 
heavy  mustache  and  by  the  look  of  his  clothes  prosperous. 

"Wonder  who  he  was,"  Jenny  speculated.  "Perhaps  that 
man  who  was  struck  on  her  and  who  she  wouldn't  go  away 
with."  This  photograph  she  burned.  Suddenly,  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  packet  of  letters,  Jenny  caught  sight  of  a  familiar 
handwriting  which  made  her  heart  beat  with  the  shock  of 
unexpected  discovery. 

"However  on  earth  did  that  come  there?"  she  murmured 
as  she  read  the  following  old  letter  from  Maurice. 


422  G.  R. 

Friday. 
My  little  darling  thing, 

I've  got  to  go  away  this  week-end,  but  never  mind,  I 
shall  see  you  on  Tuesday,  or  anyway  Wednesday  for  certain. 
I'll  yet  you  know  at  the  theater.  Good  night,  my  sweet  one. 
You  know  I'm  horribly  disappointed  after  all  our  jolly  plans. 
But  never  mind,  my  dearest,  next  week  it  will  be  just  as  de- 
lightful.    422  kisses  from  Maurice. 


The  passion  which  had  once  made  such  sentences  seem 
written  with  fire  had  long  been  dead.  So  far  as  the  author 
was  concerned,  this  old  letter  had  no  power  to  move  with 
elation  or  dejection.  No  vestige  even  of  fondness  or  senti- 
ment clung  to  this  memorial  of  anticipated  joy.  But  why 
was  it  hidden  so  carefully  in  her  mother's  desk,  and  why  was 
it  crumpled  by  frequent  reading?  And  how  could  it  have 
arrived  there  in  the  beginning?  It  was  written  in  February 
after  Jenny  had  left  home.     She  must  have  dropped  it  on  one 


3  3  o  Carnival 

of  her  visits,  and  her  mother  finding  it  must  have  thought  there 
was  something  behind  those  few  gay  words.  Jenny  tried  to  re- 
member if  she  had  roused  the  suspicion  of  an  intrigue  by  stay- 
ing for  a  week-end  with  some  girl  friend.  But,  of  course,  she 
was  away  all  the  time,  and  often  her  mother  must  have  thought 
she  was  staying  with  Maurice.  All  her  scruples,  all  her  care 
had  gone  for  nothing.  She  had  wrecked  her  love  to  no  purpose, 
for  her  mother  must  have  been  weighed  down  by  the  imagina- 
tion of  her  daughter's  frailty.  She  must  have  brooded  over  it, 
fed  her  heart  with  the  bitterness  of  disappointment  and,  ever 
since  that  final  protest  which  made  Jenny  leave  home,  in  gnaw- 
ing silence.  Jenny  flung  the  letter  into  the  fire  and  sat  down 
to  contemplate  the  dreadful  fact  that  she  had  driven  her 
mother  slowly  mad.  These  doctors  with  their  abscess  were  all 
wrong.  It  was  despair  of  her  daughter's  behavior  which  had 
caused  it  all.  She  went  into  the  kitchen  and  watched  the  serv- 
ant wrestle  inadequately  with  her  work,  then  wandered  back 
to  the  parlor  and  slammed  the  lid  of  the  trunk  down  to  shut 
out  the  reproach  of  her  mother's  possessions.  It  was  growing 
late.  Soon  she  must  get  ready  to  start  for  the  theater.  What 
a  failure  she  was!  The  front  door  bell  rang  and  Jenny,  glad 
of  relief  from  her  thoughts,  went  to  open  it.  Trewhella, 
wringing  wet,  stepped  into  the  passage. 

"Why,  Miss  Raeburn,"  he  said,  "here's  a  grand  surprise." 

"Have  you  had  your  tea?"  the  hostess  inquired. 

"Ess,  had  tea  an  hour  ago  or  more.  Dirty  weather,  'tis, 
sure  enough." 

He  had  followed  her  into  the  parlor  as  he  spoke,  and  in  the 
gray  gloom  he  seemed  to  her  gigantic  and  like  rock  im- 
movable. 

"Finished  your  business?"  she  asked,  oppressed  by  the  silence 
which  succeeded  his  entrance. 

"Ess,  this  right  of  way  is  settled  for  good  or  bad,  accord- 
ing to  which  one's  happy.  And  now  I've  got  nothing  to  do 
but  wait  for  your  answer. 

The  lamplighter's  click  and  dying  footfall  left  the  room  in 


Mr.  Z,  Trewhella  331 

a  ghostly  radiance,  and  the  pallid  illumination  streaming 
through  the  lace  curtains  threw  their  reflection  on  the  walls 
and  table  in  a  filigree  of  shadows. 

"I'll  light  the  gas,"  said  Jenny. 

"No,  don't;  but  hark  to  what  I  do  say.  I'm  regular  burnt 
up  for  love  of  'ee.  My  heart  is  like  lead  so  heavy  for  the 
long  waiting.  Why  won't  'ee  marry  me,  my  lovely?  'Tis  a 
proper  madness  of  love  and  no  mistake.  Maid  Jenny,  what's 
your  answer?" 

"All  right.  I  will  marry  you,"  she  said  coldly.  "And  now 
let  me  turn  on  the  gas." 

She  struck  a  match,  and  in  the  wavering  glow  she  saw  his 
form  loom  over  her. 

"No,"  she  half  screamed;  "don't  kiss  me.  Not  yet.  Not 
yet.     People  can  see  through  the  window." 

"Leave  'em  stare  so  hard  as  they've  a  mind  to.  What  do 
it  matter  to  we?" 

"No,  don't  be  silly.  I  don't  want  to  start  kissing.  Besides, 
I  must  run.     I'm  late  for  the  theater." 

"Darn  the  theater.     You  don't  want  to  go  there  no  more." 

"I  must  give  a  fortnight's  notice." 

Mr.  Z.  Trewhella,  a  little  more  than  fox,  perceived  it 
would  not  take  much  to  make  her  repudiate  her  promise  and 
wisely  did  not  press  the  point. 

"Will  I  putt  'ee  down  along  a  little  bit  of  the  road?"  he 
asked. 

"No,  no.     I'm  in  a  hurry.     Not  to-night." 

Presently,  in  the  amber  fog  that  on  wet  nights  suffuses  the 
inside  of  a  tram,  Jenny  rode  down  towards  tlie  Tube  station, 
picturing  to  herself  her  little  sister  in  a  garden  of  flowers. 


22 


Chapter  XXXV:   The  Marriage  of 
Columbine 

TREWHELLA  spent  in  Cornwall  the  fortnight  during 
which  Jenny  insisted  on  dancing  out  her  contract 
with  the  Orient.  The  withdrawal,  ostensibly  to 
prepare  his  mother  for  the  wife's  arrival,  was  a  wise  move  on 
his  part,  for  Jenny  was  left  merely  with  the  contemplation 
of  marriage  as  an  abstract  condition  of  existence  undismayed 
by  the  presence  of  a  future  husband  whom  she  did  not  regard 
with  any  affection.  She  did  not  announce  her  decision  to  the 
girls  in  the  theater  until  the  night  before  her  departure.  At 
once  ensued  a  chorus  of  surprise,  encouragement,  speculation 
and  good  wishes. 

"If  I  don't  like  Cornwall,"  Jenny  declared,  "I  shall  jolly 
soon  come  back  to  dear  old  London.  Don't  you  worry  your- 
selves." 

"Write  to  us,  Jenny,"  the  girls  begged. 

"Rather." 

"And  mind  you  come  and  see  us  first  time  you  get  to  Lon- 
don." 

"Of  course  I  shall,"  she  promised  and,  perhaps  to  avoid 
tears,  ran  quickly  down  the  court,  with  her  box  of  grease 
paints  underneath  her  arm. 

"Good  luck,"  cried  all  the  girls,  waving  farewell  in  sil- 
houette against  the  dull  orange  opening  of  the  stage  door. 

"See  you  soon,"  she  called  back  over  her  shoulder.  "Good- 
bye, all." 

Another  chorus  of  good-byes  traveled  in  pursuit  along  the 
darkness  as,  leaving  behind  her  a  legend  of  mirth,  an  echo  of 
laughter,  she  vanished  round  the  corner. 

332 


The  Marriage  oj  Columbine     -t^i^"}^ 

Jenny  and  Trewhella  were  married  next  morning  in  a 
shadowy  old  church  from  whose  gloom  the  priest  emerged  like 
a  spectre.  She  was  seized  with  a  desire  to  laugh  when  she 
found  herself  kneeling  beside  Trewhella.  She  fell  to  wonder- 
ing how  May  was  looking  behind  her,  and  wished,  when  the 
moment  came  for  her  father  to  give  her  away,  that  he  would 
not  clip  his  tongue  between  his  teeth,  as  if  he  were  engaged  on 
a  delicate  piece  of  joinery.  Mr.  Corin,  too,  kept  up  a  con- 
tinuous grunting  and,  when  through  the  pervading  silence  of 
the  dark  edifice  any  noise  echoed,  she  dreaded  the  rustle  of 
Aunt  Mabel's  uninvited  approach.  It  did  not  take  so  long 
to  be  married  as  to  be  buried,  and  the  ceremony  was  concluded 
sooner  than  she  expected.  In  the  registry  she  blushed  over 
the  inscription  of  her  name,  and  let  fall  a  large  blot  like  a 
halo  above  her  spinsterhood.  Luckily  there  was  no  time  for 
jests  and  banqueting  as,  in  order  to  arrive  in  Cornwall  that 
night,  it  was  necessary  to  catch  the  midday  train  from  Pad- 
dington.  Jenny  looked  very  small  beneath  the  station's  great 
arch  of  dingy  glass,  and  was  impressed  by  the  slow  solemnity 
of  Paddington,  so  different  from  the  hysteria  of  Waterloo  and 
frosty  fog  of  Euston.  Trewhella,  leaning  on  his  blackthorn, 
talked  to  their  father  and  Mr.  Corin,  while  the  two  girls  en- 
sconced themselves   in  the  compartment. 

"Take  your  seats,"  an  official  cried,  and  when  Trewhella 
had  got  in,  Mr.  Raeburn  occupied  the  window  with  his  last 
words. 

"Well,  I  sha'n't  go  down  to  the  shop  to-day,  not  now. 
Let's  have  a  line  to  say  you've  arrived  all  safe.  You  know 
my  address  after  I  clear  out  of  Hagworth  Street." 

"So  long,  dad,"  said  Jenny  awkwardly.  Neither  she  nor 
May  had  ever  within  memory  kissed  their  father,  hut  on  this 
last  opportunity  for  demonstrative  piety  they  compromised  with 
sentiment  so  far  as  each  to  blow  him  a  kiss  when  the  train 
began  to  move,  and  in  token  of  goodwill  to  let  for  a  little 
while  a  handkerchief  flutter  from  the  window. 

There  was  no  one   else   in  the  carriage  besides  themselves, 


334  Carnival 

and  in  the  stronger  light  that  suddenly  succeeds  a  train's  free- 
dom from  stationary  dimness,  Jenny  thought  how  lonely  they 
must  look.  To  be  sure,  May's  company  was  a  slight  solace, 
but  that  could  neither  ease  the  constraint  of  her  attitude 
towards  Trewhella  nor  remove  the  sense  of  imprisonment 
created  by  his  proximity.  It  was  a  new  experience  for  her  to 
be  compelled  to  meet  a  man  at  a  disadvantage,  although  as  yet 
the  nearness  of  freedom  prevented  the  complete  realization  of 
oppression.  Trewhella  himself  seemed  content  to  sit  watching 
her,  proud  in  the  consciousness  of  a  legalized  property. 

So  the  green  miles  rolled  by  until  the  naked  downs  of  Wilt- 
shire first  hinted  of  a  strange  country,  and  in  a  view  of  them 
through  the  window  Trewhella  seemed  to  gather  from  their 
rounded  solitudes  strength,  tasting  already,  as  it  were,  the  tang 
of  the  Cornish  air. 

"Well,  my  lovely,  what  do  'ee  think  of  it  all?" 

"It's  nice,  I  like  it,"  replied  Jenny. 

Conversation  faltered  in  the  impossibility  of  discussing  any- 
thing with  Trewhella,  or  even  in  his  presence.  Jenny  turned 
her  mind  to  the  moment  of  first  addressing  him  as  Zachary 
or  Zack.  She  could  not  bring  herself  to  mouth  this  absurd 
name  without  an  inward  blush.  She  began  to  worry  over  this 
problem  of  outward  behavior,  while  the  unusual  initial  twisted 
itself  into  an  arabesque  at  once  laughable  and  alarming.  And 
she  was  Mrs.  Z.  Trewhella.  Jenny  began  to  scrabble  on  the 
pane  filmed  with  smoke  the  fantastic  initial.  As  for  Jenny 
Trewhella,  madness  would  have  to  help  the  signature  of  such 
an  inapposite  conjunction.  Then,  in  a  pretense  of  reading, 
she  began  to  study  her  husband's  countenance,  and  with  the 
progress  of  contemplation  to  persuade  herself  of  his  unreality. 
Sometimes  he  would  make  a  movement  or  hazard  a  remark, 
and  she,  waking  with  a  start  to  his  existence,  would  ponder 
distastefully  the  rusted  neck,  the  hands  like  lizard  skin,  and 
the  lack  luster  nails  frayed  by  agriculture. 

The  train  was  rocking  through  the  flooded  meads  of  Somer- 
set in  a  desolation  of  silver,  and  the  length  of  the  journey  was 


The  Marriage  of  Columbine     335 

already  heavy  on  Jenny's  mind.  She  had  not  traveled  so  far 
since  she  was  swept  on  to  the  freedom  of  Glasgow  and  Dub- 
lin. Now,  with  every  mile  nearer  to  the  west,  her  bondage 
became  more  imminent.  Trewhella  loomed  large  in  the  nar- 
row compartment  as  Teignmouth  was  left  behind.  They 
seemed  to  be  traveling  even  beyond  the  sea  itself,  and  Jenny 
was  frightened  when  she  saw  it  lapping  the  permanent  way 
as  they  plunged  in  and  out  of  the  hot-colored  Devonshire  cliffs. 
Exeter  with  its  many  small  gardens  and  populated  back  win- 
dows cheered  her,  and  Plymouth,  gray  though  it  was,  held  a 
thought  of  London.  Soon,  however,  they  swung  round  the 
curve  of  the  Albert  Bridge  over  the  Tamar  and  out  of  Devon. 
Sadly  she  watched  the  Hamoaze  vanish. 

"Cornwall  at  last,"  said  Trewhella,  with  a  sigh  of  satisfac- 
tion. "  'Tis  a  handsome  place,  Plymouth,  but  I  do  dearly 
love  to  leave  it  behind  me." 

The  heavy  November  twilight  caught  them  as  the  train 
roared  through  the  Bobmin  valley  past  hillsides  stained  with 
dead  bracken — like  iron  mold,  Jenny  thought.  St.  Austell 
shone  white  in  the  aquamarine  dusk,  and  darkness  wrapped 
the  dreary  country  bej^ond  Truro.  Every  station  now  seemed 
crowded  with  figures,  whose  unfamiliar  speech  had  a  melan- 
choly effect  upon  the  girls  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  exhilaration 
it  produced  in  Trewhella.  Jenny  thought  how  little  she  knev/ 
of  her  destination:  in  fact  without  May's  company  she  might 
as  well  be  dead — into  such  an  abyss  of  strange  gloom  was 
she  being  more  deeply  plunged  with  every  mile.  Trewhella, 
as  if  in  reply  to  her  thoughts,  began  to  talk  of  Trewinnard. 

"Next  station's  ours,"  he  said.  "And  then  there's  a  seven- 
mile  drive;  so  we  sha'n't  get  home  along  much  before  half- 
past  eight." 

"Fancy,  seven  miles,"   said  Jenny. 

"Long  seven  mile,  'tis,  too,"  he  added.  "And  a  nasty  old 
road  on  a  dark  night.     Come,  we'll  set  out  our  passels." 

It  was  like  action  in  a  dream  to  reach  down  from  the  rack 
various  parcels  and  boxes,  to  fold  up  cloaks  and  collect  uni 


zz^ 


Carnival 


brellas.  Jenny  watched  from  the  window  for  the  twinkle  of 
town  lights  heralding  their  stopping-place,  but  without  any 
preliminary  illumination  the  train  pulled  up  at  Nantivet  Road. 

"Here  we  are,"  shouted  Trewhella,  and  as  the  girls  stood 
with  frightened  eyes  in  the  dull  and  tremulous  light  of  the 
platform,  he  seemed  fresh  from  a  triumphant  abduction.  The 
luggage  lay  stacked  in  a  gray  pile  with  ghostly  uncertain  out- 
lines. The  train,  wearing  no  longer  any  familiar  look  of 
London,  puffed  slowly  on  to  some  farther  exile,  its  sombre 
bulk  checkered  with  golden  squares,  the  engine  flying  a  pennant 
of  sparks  as  it  swung  round  into  a  cutting  whence  the  sound 
of  its  emerging  died  away  on  the  darkness  in  a  hollow  moan. 
The  stillness  of  the  deep  November  night  was  now  profound, 
merely  broken  by  the  rasp  of  a  trunk  across  the  platform  and 
the  punctuated  stamping  of  a  horse's  hoof  on  the  wet 
road. 

"That's  Carver,"  said  Trewhella,  as  the  three  of  them,  their 
tickets  delivered  to  a  shadowy  figure,  walked  in  the  direction 
of  the  sound. 

"Carver?"  repeated  Jenny. 

"My  old  mare." 

The  lamps  of  the  farm  cart  dazzled  the  vision  as  they  stood 
watching  the  luggage  piled  up  behind.  To  the  girls  the  cart 
seemed  enormous;  the  mare  of  mammoth  size.  The  small 
boy  who  had  driven  to  meet  them  looked  like  a  gnome  perched 
upon  the  towering  vehicle,  and  by  his  smallness  confirmed 
the  impression  of  hugeness. 

"Well,  boy  Thomas,"  said  his  master  in  greeting. 

"Mr.  Trewhella!" 

"Here's  missus  come  down." 

"Mrs.   Trewhella!"   said   the  boy  in  shy   welcome. 

"And  her  sister,  Miss  Raeburn,"  added  the  farmer. 

Jenny  looked  wistfully  at  May  as  if  she  envied  her  the  in- 
troduction with  its  commemoration  of  Islington. 

"Now,  come,"  said  Zachary,  "leave  me  give  'ee  a  hand 
up. 


The  Marriage  of  CoIumbi?ie     337 

He  lifted  May  and  set  her  down  on  the  seat.  Then  he 
turned  to  his  wife. 

"Con:ie,  my  dear,  leave  me  put  'ee  up." 

"I'd  rather  get  in  by  myself,"  she  answered. 

But  Trewhella  caught  her  in  his  arms  and,  with  a  kiss, 
deposited  her  beside  May.  Thomas  was  stowed  away  among 
the  luggage  at  the  back;  the  farmer  himself  got  in,  shook  up 
Carver,  and  with  a  good  night  to  the  porter  set  out  with  his 
bride  to   Bochyn. 

The  darkness  was  immense:  the  loneliness  supreme.  At 
first  the  road  lay  through  an  open  stretch  of  flat  boggy  grass- 
land, where  stagnant  pools  of  water  glimmered  with  the  light 
of  the  cart  lamps  as  the  vehicle  shambled  by.  After  a  mile  or 
so  they  dipped  down  between  high  hedges  and  overarching 
trees  that  gave  more  response  to  their  lights  than  the  open 
country,  whose  incommensurable  blackness  swallowed  up  their 
jigging,  feeble  illumination. 

"It  smells  like  the  inside  of  a  flower-shop,  doesn't  it?"  said 
May.  "You  know,  sort  of  bathroom  smell.  It  must  be  glori- 
ous in  the  daytime." 

"Yes,  'tis  grand  in  summer  time,  sure  enough,"  Trewhella 
agreed. 

The  declivity  became  more  precipitous,  and  the  farmer 
pulled  up. 

"Get  down,  you,  boy  Thomas,  and  lead  Carver." 

Tliomas  scrambled  out,  and  with  a  loud  "whoa"  caught 
hold  of  the  reins. 

"It's  like  the  first  scene  of  a  panto.  You  know,  demons 
and  all,"  said  Jenny. 

Indeed,  Thomas,  with  his  orange-like  head  and  dispropor- 
tionately small  body,  leading  the  great  mare,  whose  breath 
hung  in  fumes  upon  the  murky  air,  had  a  scarcely  human 
look.  At  the  walking  pace  May  was  able  to  distinguish  ferns 
in  the  grass  banks  and  pointed  them  out  to  Jenny,  who,  how- 
ever, was  feeling  anxious  as  in  the  steep  descent  the  horse  from 
time  to  time  slipped  on  a  loose  stone.     Down  thev  went,  down 


338  Carnival 

and  down  through  the  moisture  and  lush  fernery.  Presently 
they  came  to  level  ground  and  the  gurgle  of  running  water. 
Trewhella  pulled  up  for  Thomas  to  clamber  in  again.  Be- 
yond the  rays  of  their  lamps,  appeared  the  outline  of  a  house. 

"Is  this  a  place?"  Jenny  asked. 

"  'Tis  Tiddlywits,"  Trewhella  answered.  "Or  belonged 
to  be  rather,  for  there's  nothing  left  of  it  now  but  a  few  mud 
walls.     A  wisht  old  place,  'tis." 

On  restarting,  they  splashed  through  a  stream  that  flowed 
across  the  road. 

"Oo-er,"  cried  Jenny,  "take  care,  we're  in  the  water." 

Trewhella  laughed  loudly,  and  a  moorhen  waking  in  sud- 
den panic  rose  with  a  shrill  cry  from  a  belt  of  rushes. 

"Oo-er,  I'm  getting  frightened,"  said  Jenny.  "Put  me 
down.    Oh,  May,  I  wish  we  hadn't  come." 

Trewhella  laughed  louder  than  before.  The  wish  appealed 
in  its  futility  to  his  humor. 

Now  came  a  slow  pull  up  an  equally  deep  lane,  followed 
at  the  summit  by  another  stretch  of  open  country  very  wild. 
Suddenly  the  mare  swerved  violently.  Jenny  screamed.  A 
long  shape  leaned  over  them  in  menace. 

"Ah,  look!     Oh,  no!     I  w^ant  to  go  back,"  she  cried. 

"Steady,  you  devil,"  growled  Trewhella  to  the  horse.  "  'Tis 
nothing,  my  dear,  nothing  only  an  old  stone  cross." 

"It  gave  me  a  shocking  turn,"  said  Jenny. 

"It  made  me  feel  rather  funny,"  said  May.  "You  know, 
all  over  like." 

The  girls  shivered,  and  the  cart  jogged  on  across  the  waste. 
They  passed  a  skewbald  sign-post  crowded  with  unfamiliar 
goblin  names,  and  a  dry  tree  from  which  once  depended,  Tre- 
whella assured  them,  the  bodies  of  three  notorious  smugglers. 
One  of  the  carriage  candles  proved  too  short  to  sustain  the 
double  journey  and  presently  flickered  out  gradually,  so  that 
the  darkness  on  one  side  seem.ed  actually  to  advance  upon 
them.  After  a  long  interval  of  silence  Trewhella  pulled  up 
with  a  jerk. 


The  Marriage  of  Columbine     339 

"Listen,"  he  commanded. 

"Oh,  what  is  it?"  asked  Jenny,  with  visions  of  a  mur- 
derer's approach.  On  a  remote  road  sounded  the  trot  of 
horses'  hoofs  miles  away. 

"Somebody  coming  after  us,"  she  gasped,  clutching  May's 
sleeve. 

"No,  that's  a  cart;  but  listen,  can't  you  hear  the  sea?" 
Ahead  of  them  in  the  thick  night  like  the  singing  of  a  kettle 
sounded  the  interminable  ocean. 

"Wind's  getting  up,  I  believe,"  said  Trewhella.  "There's 
an  ugly  smell  in  the  air.  Dirty  weather,  I  suppose,  dirty 
weather,"  he  half  chanted  to  himself,  whipping  up  the  mare. 
Soon,  indeed,  with  a  wide  sigh  that  filled  the  waste  of 
darkness,  the  wind  began  to  blow,  setting  all  :he  withered 
rushes  and  stunted  gorse  bushes  hissing  and  lisping.  The 
effort,  however,  was  momentary;  and  presently  the  gust  died 
away  in  a  calm  almost  profounder  than  before.  After  an- 
other two  miles  of  puddles  and  darkness,  the  heavy  air  was 
tempered  with  an  unwonted  freshness.  The  farmer  again 
pulled   up. 

"Now  you  can  hark  to  it  clear  enough,"  he  said. 
Down  below  boomed    a  slow  monotone  of   breakers  on   a 
long  flat  beach. 

"That's  Trewinnard  Sands,  and  when  the  sea  do  call  there 
so  plain,  it  means  dirty  weather,  sure  enough.  And  here's 
Trewinnard  Churchtown,  and  down  along  a  bit  of  the  way  is 
Bochyn." 

A  splash  of  light  from  a  dozen  cottages  showed  a  squat 
church  surrounded  by  clumps  of  shorn  pine  trees.  The  road 
did  not  improve  as  they  drew  clear  of  the  village,  and  it  was 
a  relief  after  the  jolting  in  and  out  of  ruts  to  turn  aside 
through  a  white  gate,  and  even  to  crunch  along  over  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  of  rough  stones  through  two  more  gates  until  they 
reached  the  softness  of  farmyard  mud.  As  they  pulled  up 
for  the  last  time,  between  trimmed  hedges  of  escallonia  a  low 
garden  gate  was  visible;  and   against   the  golden  stream  suf- 


34^  Carnival 

fused  by  a  slanting  door,  the  black  silhouette  of  a  woman's 
figure,  with  hand  held  up   to  shade  her   eyes. 

"Here  we  are,  mother,"  Trewhella  called  out.  Then  he 
lifted  down  the  two  girls,  and  together  they  walked  up  a 
flagged  path  towards  the  light.  Jenny  blinked  in  the  dazzle 
of  the  room's  interior.  Old  Mrs.  Trewhella  stared  critically 
at  the  sisters. 

"Yon's  a  wisht-looking  maid,"  she  said  sharply  to  her  son, 
with  a  glance  at  May. 

"Oh,  they're  both  tired,"  he  answered  gruffly. 

"And  what  do  'ee  think  of  Cornwall,  my  dear?"  asked  the 
old  woman,  turning  to  the  bride. 

"I  think  it's  very  dark,"  said  Jenny. 


Chapter  XXXVI:   The  Tragic  Loading 

THE  bridal  feast  was  strewn  about  the  table;  the  tea- 
pot was  steaming;  the  cream  melted  to  ivory  richness, 
and,  among  many  more  familiar  eatables,  the  saffron 
calce  looked  gaudy  and  exotic.  After  the  first  bashful  make- 
weights of  conversation,  Jenny  and  May  put  their  cloaks 
down,  took  off  wraps,  and  made  the  travelers'  quick  prepara- 
tion for  a  meal  which  has  expected  their  arrival  for  some  time. 
Then  down  they  all  sat,  and  with  the  distraction  of  common 
hunger  the  painful  air  of  embarrassment  was  temporarily 
driven  off.  Old  Mrs.  Trewhella  was  inclined  with  much  as- 
sertion of  humility  to  yield  to  Jenny  her  position  at  the  head 
of  the  table;  but  she,  overawed  by  the  prodigal  display  of  new 
dishes,  of  saffron  cake  and  pasties  and  bowls  of  cream,  pre- 
vailed upon  the  older  woman  to  withhold  her  resignation. 

The  living-room  of  Bochyn  was  long,  low,  and  raftered, 
extending  apparently  to  the  whole  length  of  the  farmhouse, 
except  where  a  parlor  on  the  left  of  the  front  door  usurped 
a  corner.  Very  conspicuous  was  the  hearth,  with  its  large 
double  range  extravagantly  embossed  with  brass  ornaments  and 
handles.  On  closer  inspection  the  ironwork  itself  was  ham- 
mered out  into  a  florid  landscape  of  pagodas,  mandarins  and 
dragons.  Jenny  could  not  take  her  eyes  off  this  ostentatious 
piece  of  utility. 

"Handsome  slab,  isn't   it?"  said  Trewhella  proudly. 

"Slab?" 

"Stove — we   do  call  them  slabs  in   Cornwall." 

"It's  nice.  Only  what  a  dreadful  thing  to  clean,  I  should 
say." 

341 


342  Carnival 

"Maid  Emily  does  that,"  explained  Mrs.  Trewhella. 

Jenny  turned  her  glances  to  the  rest  of  the  room.  By  the 
side  of  the  slab  hung  a  copper  warming-pan  holding  in  ruddy 
miniature  the  room's  reflection.  Here  were  also  brass  ladles 
and  straining  spoons  and  a  pair  of  bellows,  whose  perfectly 
circular  box  was  painted  with  love-knots  and  quivers.  On  the 
high  mantlepiece  stood  several  large  and  astonished  china  dogs 
with  groups  of  roughly  cast,  crudely  tinted  pottery  including 
Lord  Nelson  and  Elijah,  all  set  in  a  thicket  of  brass  candle- 
sticks. Indeed,  brass  was  the  predominant  note  in  the  general 
decoration.  The  walls  were  shining  with  tobacco  boxes,  snuf- 
fers, sconces  and  trays.  Very  little  space  on  the  low  walls 
could  be  found  for  pictures;  but  one  or  two  chromolithographs, 
including  "Cherry  Ripe"  and  "Bubbles,"  had  succeeded  in  es- 
tablishing a  right  to  be  hung.  All  down  the  middle  of  the 
room  ran  a  long  oak  trestle-table,  set  with  Chippendale  chairs 
at  the  end  which  Jenny  and  the  family  occupied,  but  where 
the  rest  of  the  household  sat,  with  benches.  The  five  windows 
were  veiled  in  curtains  of  some  dim  red  stuff,  and  between 
the  two  on  the  farther  side  from  the  front  door  stood  an  ex- 
ceptionally tall  grandfather's  clock,  above  whose  face,  in  a 
marine  upheaval  that  involved  the  sun,  moon  and  stars,  united 
rising,  a  ship  rocked  violently  with  every  swing  of  the  pendu- 
lum. A  door  at  the  back  opened  to  an  echoing  vault  of  laun- 
dries, sculleries,  larders  and  pantries,  while  in  the  corner  be- 
yond the  outhouse  door  was  a  dark  and  boxed  staircase  very 
straight  and  steep,  a  cavernous  staircase  gaping  to  unknown 
corridors   and   rooms   far   away. 

Old  Mrs.  Trewhella  suited  somehow  that  sinister  gangway, 
for,  being  so  lame  as  to  depend  on  a  crutch,  the  measured 
thump  of  her  progress  was  carried  down  the  gloom  with  an 
eternal  sameness  of  sound  that  produced  in  the  listener  a  sensa- 
tion of  uneasiness.  She  had  a  hen-like  face,  the  brightness  of 
whose  eyes  was  continually  shuttered  by  rapid  blinks.  Her 
hair,  very  thin  but  scarcely  gray,  was  smoothed  down  so  close 
as  to  give  her  head  the  appearance  of  a  Dutch  doll's.    She  had 


The  Tragic  Loading  343 

a  slight  mustache  and  several  tufted  moles.  There  was  much 
of  the  witch  about  her  and  more  of  the  old  maid  than  the 
mother. 

When  the  new  arrivals  had  been  seated  at  the  table  for 
some  minutes,  the  rest  of  the  household  trooped  in  through 
the  outhouse  door.  Thomas  Hosken  led  the  procession.  His 
face  under  the  glaze  of  soap  looked  more  like  an  orange  than 
ever,  and  he  had  in  his  walk  the  indeterminate  roll  of  that 
fruit.  Emily  Day  came  next,  a  dark  slip  of  a  maid  with  long- 
lashed  stag's  eyes,  too  large  for  the  rest  of  her.  She  was  fol- 
lowed by  Dicky  Rosewarne,  a  full-blooded,  handsome,  awk- 
ward boy  of  about  twenty-three,  loose-jointed  like  a  yearling 
colt  and  bringing  in  with  him  a  smell  of  deep-turned  enrth, 
of  bonfires  and  autumn  leaves.  Bessie  Trevorrow,  the  dairy- 
maid, ripe  as  a  pippin,  came  in,  turning  down  the  sleeves  of  a 
bird's-eye  print  dress  over  forearms  that  made  Jenny  gasp. 
She  could  not  reconcile  the  inconsistencies  of  feature  in  Bessie, 
could  not  match  the  burning  almond  eyes  with  the  coarse  lips, 
nor  see  how  such  weather-stained  cheeks  could  belong  to  so 
white  a  neck.  Last  of  all  came  Old  Man  Veal,  whose  duties 
and  status  no  one  rightly  knew.  The  household  individually 
slid  into  their  separate  places  along  the  benches  with  sidelong 
shy  greetings  to  Jenny  and  May,  who  for  their  part  would 
have  sat  down  with  more  ease  to  supper  with  a  flock  of  sheep. 
One  chair  still  remained  empty. 

"Where's  Granfa  Champion?"  asked  Trewhella. 

"Oh,  my  dear  life,  that  old  man  is  always  last,"  grumbled 
Mrs.  Trewhella.  "What  a  thing  'tis  to  have  ancient  old  rela- 
tions as  do  never  know  to  come  in  to  a  meal.  Go  find  him, 
boy  Thomas,"  she  added  with  a  sigh. 

Thomas  was  much  embarrassed  by  this  order,  and  a  sub- 
dued titter  ran  round  the  lower  part  of  the  table  as  Thomas 
made  one  of  his  fruit-like  exits  to  find  Granfa  Champion. 

"He's  my  uncle,"  explained  Mrs.  Trewhella  to  Jenny.  "A 
decent  old  man  as  anyone  could  wish  to  meet,  but  mo-.t  terrible 
unknowing  of  the  time.     I   believe  he's  so  old  that  time  do 


344  Carnival 

mean    nothing    to   him.      I    believe  he's  grown  to  despise  It." 

"Is  he  very  old?"  asked  Jenny,  for  want  of  anything  better 
to  say. 

"Well,  nobody  do  know  how  old  he  is.  There's  a  difference 
of  twenty  years  in  the  opinions  you'll  hear  put  about.  Poor 
old  soul,  he  do  give  very  little  trouble  at  all.  For  when 
the  sun  do  shine,  he's  all  the  time  walking  up  and  down  the 
garden,  and  when  'tis  dropping,  he  do  sit  in  his  room  so  quiet 
as  a  great  old  lamb." 

Here  Thomas  came  back  with  positive  news. 

"Mr.  Champion  can't  get  his  boot  off  and  he's  in  some  frizz 
about  it." 

"How  can't  he  get  his  boot  off?  How  didn't  'ee  help 
him?" 

"So  I  did,"  said  Thomas.  "But  he  wouldn't  hear  nothing 
of  what  I  do  know  about  boots,  and  kept  on  all  the  time  tell- 
ing what  a  fool  I  was.     I  done  my  best  with  'en." 

At  this  moment  Granfa  Champion  himself  appeared,  his 
countenance  flushed  with  conquest,  his  eyes  shining  in  a  limpid 
blue,  his  snow-white  hair  like  spindrift  round  his  face. 

"Come  in,  you  Granfa,"  his  nephew  invited. 

"Is  the  maids  come?"  he  asked. 

"Ess,  ess,  here  they  are  sitting  down  waiting  for  'ee," 

Mr.  Champion  advanced  with  a  fine  stateliness  and  nobility 
of  welcome.  Indeed,  shy  as  she  was,  his  entrance  tempted 
Jenny  to  rise  from  her  chair. 

"Come,  leave  me  look  at  'ee,"  said  Granfa,  placing  his 
hands  on  her  shoulders. 

"Keep  quiet,  uncle,"  said  Mrs.  Trewhella.  "You'll  make 
her  fire  up." 

"Ah,  nonsense,"  contradicted  the  old  man.  "That's  nothing. 
I  do  dearly  love  to  see  maids'  cheeks  in  a  blush.  Wish  you 
well,  my  lovely,"  he  added,  clasping  Jenny's  hands.  "I'm  ter- 
rible hurried  I  wasn't  here  to  give  'ee  a  welcome  by  the  door." 

Jenny  liked  this  old  man,  who  for  the  exile  from  a  distant 
country  by  his  age  and  dignity  and  sv/eetness  conjured  a  few 


The  Tragic  Loading  345 

tears  of  home.  The  supper,  a  late  meal  for  such  a  household, 
went  its  course  at  a  fair  speed;  for  they  were  all  anxious  to 
be  off  to  bed  with  the  prospect  of  work  in  the  windy  Novem- 
ber dawn.  Very  soon  they  all  vanished  through  the  out-house 
door,  and  Granfa,  with  lighted  candle,  a  hot  brick  wrapped 
in  flannel  under  his  arm,  twinkled  slowly  up  to  bed  through 
the  hollow  staircase.  The  rest  of  them  were  left  alone  in  a 
silence.  It  was  ten  o'clock,  and  the  fire  was  already  paling 
behind  the  fluted  bars  of  the  slab. 

"Well,  I  suppose  you're  thinking  of  bed?"  suggested  Mrs. 
Trewhella. 

May  looked  anxiously  at  her  sister. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  we  are,"  Jenny  agreed. 

Zachary  began  to  whistle  a  Sankey  hymn  tune. 

"You'll  be  wishing  to  unpack  your  things  first,"  continued 
Mrs.  Trewhella. 

"Yes,  I  ought  to  unpack,"  Jenny  said  in  a  frozen  voice. 

"I've  put  May  in  the  bedroom  next  to  you.  Come,  I'll 
show  'ee." 

Zachary  still  sat  whistling  his  hymn  tune.  A  bird  shielded 
from  view  by  the  window-curtain  stirred  in  his  cage.  Mrs. 
Trewhella  lighted  three  candles.  Cloaks  were  picked  up  and 
flung  over  arms,  and  in  single  file  the  three  figures,  each  with 
her  winking  guide,  vanished  up  the  staircase. 

"What  a  long  passage,"  whispered  Jenny  when  they  stood 
in  a  bunch  at   the  top. 

Mrs.  Trewhella  led  the  way  to  the  bride's  chamber. 

"You're  here,  where  the  wives  of  the  Trewhellas  have  slept 
some  long  time." 

After  the  low  room  downstairs  the  bedroom  seemed  enor- 
mous. The  ceiling  in  Gothic  irregularities  of  outline  slanted 
up  and  up  to  cobwebs  and  shadows.  It  was  a  great  barn  of 
a  room.  A  tall  four-post  bed,  hung  with  faded  tapestries  of 
Love  and  War,  was  set  off  by  oak  chests-of-drawers  and  Court 
cupboards.  The  floor  was  uneven,  strangely  out  of  keeping 
with  the  rose-infested  Brussels  carpet  so  vividly  new.     Most 


34^ 


Carnival 


of  the  windows,  latticed  and  small,  were  set  flush  with  the 
floor;  but  high  up  in  a  dormer  was  a  large  window  with  dia- 
monded panes,  uncurtained,  black  and  ominous.  A  couple  of 
tall  cheval-glasses  added  to  the  mystery  of  the  room  with  their 
reduplication  of  shadowy  corners. 

"And  May's  in  here,"  Mrs.  Trewhella  informed  them,  lead- 
ing the  way.  "The  loft  begins  again  after  your  bedroom, 
so  the  ceiling  isn't  so  tall." 

Certainly,  May's  room  was  ordinary  enough,  even  dainty, 
with  the  dimity  curtains  and  wall-paper  of  bows  and  forget- 
me-nots.  Round  the  toilet-table  crackled  a  pink  chintz  valance, 
draped  in  stiffest  muslin. 

Mrs.  Trewhella  looked  closely  at  Jenny  for  a  moment  be- 
fore she  left  them. 

"You're  thin,  my  dear,"  she  commented.  "Ah,  well,  so 
was  I;  and  I  can  mind  the  time  when  they  wondered  what  a 
man  could  see  in  such  a  maid.  The  men  was  all  for  plump- 
ness then.    Wish  you  good  night." 

The  old  woman  thumped  off  down  the  corridor,  her  candle 
a-bob  with  every  limping  step. 

"What  a  dreadful  place,"  said  Jenny. 

"Don't  let's  stay,"  said  May  eagerly.  "Don't  let's  stay. 
Let's  go  back — now — now." 

"Don't  be  silly.  How  can  we  ?  But  we  never  oughtn't  to  have 
come.    Oh,  May,  I  only  wish  I  could  sleep  in  here  with  you." 

"Well,  why  don't  you?"  suggested  May,  who  was  shocked 
to  see  how  the  usually  so  indomitable  sister  was  shaking  with 
apprehension.  "There's  plenty  of  room  and  I'd  chance  what 
he  says." 

Jenny  pulled  herself  together  by  a  visible  effort. 

"No,  I  can't  go  on  sleeping  with  you.  I've  ffot  to  be  mar- 
ried, now  I've  done  it." 

The  two  sisters,  as  if  drawn  by  some  horrid  enchantment, 
went  back  to  the  bride's  room. 

"How  big  that  candle  looks,  doesn't  it,  but  small  in  one 
way.    May,  I'm  frightened,"  whispered  the  bride. 


The  Tragic  Loading  347 

There  was  a  rattle  of  falling  plaster,  a  squeak,  a  dying 
scamper. 

"Oo-er,  what  was  that?"  cried  May. 

"Rats,  I  suppose.  Oh,  this  is  a  shocking  place,"  said  Jenny, 
trembling.  "Never  mind,  it's  got  to  be  done.  It's  got  to  be 
finished  some  day.  It'll  be  all  the  same  in  a  hundred  years, 
and  anyway,  perhaps  it  won't  be  so  bad  in  the  morning. 
May!"  she  added  sharply. 

"What?" 

"Why,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  the  second  ballet's 
well  on  now  and  here  am  I  starting  off  to  undress  in  this  dog's 
island.     Let's  go  back  to  your  room  for  a  minute." 

Again  the  sisters  sought  May's  kindlier  room  and  Jenny  had 
an  idea. 

"May,  if  we  pushed  your  bed  back  close  to  the  wall,  you 
could  tap  sometimes,  and  if  I  was  awake  in  the  night  I'd  hear 
you.  May,  don't  go  to  sleep.  Promise  you  won't  go  to 
sleep." 

They  pushed  the  bedstead  back  against  the  ribbons  and  for- 
get-me-nots. Then  Jenny,  summoning  every  tradition  of  pride, 
every  throb  of  determination,  kissed  May  and  ran  to  the  lonely 
Gothic  room,  where  the  flame  of  the  solitary  candle  burned 
so  still  and  shapely  in  the  breathless  night.  She  undressed 
herself  in  a  frenzy.  It  was  like  falling  into  a  river  to  enter 
those  cold  linen  sheets  and,  worse,  to  lie  there  with  pulses 
thudding  and  breast  heaving  under  a  bravery  of  new  pink 
bows  and  ribbons.  It  could  not  be  long  now.  She  sat  up 
in  bed  thinking  to  tap  on  the  wall;  but  the  tapestried  head- 
piece muffled  the  sound.  May,  however,  heard  and  rapped 
her  answer. 

"To-morrow,"  vowed  Jenny,  "I'll  slit  those  unnatural  cur- 
tains with  my  scissors  so  as  I  can  tap  easily." 

Then  down  the  passage  she  heard  her  husband's  tread.     He 

was  still  whistling  that  tune,  more  softly,  indeed,  but  with  a 

continuous  reiteration  that  was  maddening.     Round  the  door 

his  shadow  slipped  before  him.     Jenny  hid  bcnentii  the  bed- 

23 


3+8 


Carnival 


clothes,  breathing  faster  than  a  trapped  bird.  She  heard  his 
movements  slow  and  dull  and  heavy,  accompanied  by  the  whis- 
tling, the  endless  damnable  whistling.  Then  the  lights  went 
out  and,  as  if  he  walked  on  black  velvet,  Trewhella  stole 
nearer  to  the  bed. 


chapter  XXXVII :  Columbine  in  theDark 

JENNY  lay  awake  In  a  darkness  so  intense,  so  thick,  so 
material  that  her  effort  to  repulse  it  produced  an  illu- 
sion of  a  suffocating  fabric  desperately  torn.  What 
ivory  cheeks  were  hidden  by  the  monstrous  gloom,  what  spark- 
ling eyes  were  quenched  in  the  dry  mouth  of  night! 

"Oh,  morning,  morning,"  she  moaned.  "Come  quickly,  oh, 
do  come  quick." 

Far  away  in  the  blackness  a  cock  crowed.  She  from  London 
did  not  understand  his  consolation.  Trewhella,  sleeping 
soundly  as  he  was  wont  to  sleep  on  market  nights,  did  not  stir 
to  the  appeal.    Jenny  lay  sobbing. 

"What's  it  all  for?"  she  asked.  Then  sleep,  tired  of  love's 
cruelty,  sent  rosy  dreams  to  comfort  her,  and  in  the  morning, 
when  she  woke,  her  husband  was  gone  from  her  side.  It  was 
a  morning  of  moist  winds  and  rich  November  sunlight,  of 
pattering  leaves  and  topaz  lights,  full  of  sea-gulls*  wings  and 
the  cawing  of  rooks. 

A  little  sister  stood  by  the  end  of  the  bed. 

"Oh,  get  in  beside  me,"  Jenny  cried. 

And  whatever  else  was  mad  and  bad,  there  would  always 
be  that  little  sister. 


349 


Chapter  XXXVIIT:    The  Alien  Corn 

OCHYN  was  built  to  escape  as  easily  as  possible  the 
many  storms  of  the  desolate  country  that  surrounded 
it.  The  windows  in  the  front  of  the  house  looked 
out  between  two  groves  of  straight  Cornish  elms  over  a  moist 
valley  to  a  range  of  low  hills,  whose  checkered  green  and 
brown  surface  in  the  perpetual  changes  of  light  and  atmos- 
phere took  on  the  variety  and  translucence  of  water  or  precious 
stones;  and  not  merely  their  peripheral  tints,  but  even  their 
very  contours  seemed  during  the  courses  of  the  sun  and  moon 
hourly  to  shift.  Behind  the  house  was  the  town-place,  a 
squelchy  courtyard  hemmed  in  by  stables  and  full  of  casual 
domestic  animals.  From  here  a  muddy  lane  led  up  to  the 
fields  on  the  slopes  above,  slopes  considerably  more  lofty  than 
those  visible  from  the  front  windows  and  ending  in  a  bleak 
plateau  of  heather  and  gorse  that  formed  the  immediate  ap- 
proach to  the  high  black  cliffs  of  many  miles  of  coast.  The 
house  itself  was  a  long  two-storied  building,  flanked  by  low 
gray  stone  hedges  feathered  with  tamarisks  and  fuchsias.  The 
garden,  owing  principally  to  the  care  of  Granfa  Champion,  had 
an  unusual  number  of  flowers.  Even  nov/  in  November  the 
d'lhlias  were  not  over,  and  against  the  walls  of  the  house 
pink,  ivy-leaved  geraniums  and  China  roses  were  in  full  bloom. 
The  garden  itself  ended  indeterminately,  with  no  perceptible 
line  of  severance,  in  the  moors  or  watery  meads  always  vividly 
colored,  and  in  summer  creaming  with  meadow-sweet.  At  the 
bottom  of  the  garden  was  a  rustic  gazebo,  from  which  it  was 


350 


The  Alien  Corn  351 

possible  to  follow  the  course  of  the  stream  up  the  valley  be- 
tween cultivated  slopes  that  gave  way  to  stretches  of  gorse 
and  bracken,  until  the  valley  swept  round  out  of  sight  in  thick 
coverts  of  dwarfed  oaks.  Westward  in  the  other  direction 
the  stream,  flowing  straighter  and  straighter  as  it  neared  the 
sea,  lost  itself  in  a  brown  waste  of  sand,  while  the  range  whose 
undulations  it  had  followed  sank  abruptly  to  a  marsh.  This 
flatness  made  the  contrary  slope,  which  jutted  forward  so  as 
to  hide  the  actual  breaking  of  the  waves,  appear  portentously 
high.  Indeed,  the  cliffs  on  that  side  soon  reached  three  hun- 
dred feet  and  on  account  of  their  sudden  elevation  looked 
much  higher.  The  stream  spread  out  in  wide  shallows  to  its 
outlet,  trickling  somewhat  inefifectively  in  watery  furrows 
through   the  sand. 

On  the  farther  side  of  the  brown  waste,  where  not  even 
rushes  would  grow,  so  complete  and  perpetual  was  the  devas- 
tation of  the  gales,  a  line  of  towans  followed  the  curve  of  the 
coast,  a  desolate  tract,  gray-green  from  the  rushes  planted 
to  bind  the  shifting  surface,  and  preserving  in  its  endless  peaks 
and  ridges  the  last  fantastic  glissades  and  diversely  elevated 
cones  into  which  the  wind  had  carved  and  gathered  and  swept 
the  sand.  Mostly,  these  towans  presented  to  the  beach  a  low 
line  of  serrated  cliffs  perhaps  forty  feet  high ;  but  from  time 
to  time  they  would  break  away  to  gullies  full  of  fine  drifted 
sand,  whose  small  cavities  hoarded  snail-shells  wind-dried  tc 
an  ethereal  lightness,  and  rabbit-bones  bleached  and  honey 
combed  by  weather.  After  a  storm  the  gullies  gave  an  im- 
pression of  virgin  territory,  because  the  sand  lay  in  drifts  like 
newly  fallen  snow  on  which  footprints  were  desecration.  The 
beach  itself  was  at  low  water  a  very  wide  and  flat  and  com- 
pletely desolate  expanse,  shining  near  the  sea's  edge  with  what- 
ever gold  or  silver  was  in  the  air,  shot  with  crimson  b  .rs  at 
sunset,  crinkled  by  the  wind  to  a  vast  replica  of  one  of  its 
own  shells,  ribbed  and  ploughed  by  tempests.  The  daily  ad- 
vance or  retreat  of  extreme  high  water  was  marked  by  devious 
lines  of  purple  muvices,  by  claws  of  seaweed  and  the  stain  of 


35  2  Carnival 

dry  spume.  Beyond  the  limit  of  the  spring  tides  the  sand 
swept  up  in  drifts  against  the  low  cliffs  that  crumbled  like 
biscuit  before  an  attempted  ascent. 

This  sea  solitude  reduced  all  living  things  to  a  strange 
equality  of  importance.  Twittering  sea-swallows  whose  feet 
printed  the  sand  with  desultory  and  fugitive  intagliation,  sea- 
parrots  flying  in  profile  against  the  sky  up  and  down  over  the 
water,  porpoises  rolling  out  in  the  bay,  sand-hoppers  dancing 
to  any  disturbance,  human  beings — all  became  equally  minute 
and  immaterial.  Inland  the  towans  tumbled  in  endless  irregu- 
larities of  outline  about  a  solitude  equally  complete.  The 
vegetation  scarcely  marked  the  changing  seasons,  save  where 
in  winter  the  moss  was  a  livelier  golden-green,  or  where,  be- 
side spurges  and  sea-holly  and  yellow  horned  poppies,  stone- 
crops  were  reddened  by  August  suns.  At  wide  intervals,  where 
soil  had  formed  over  the  sand,  there  was  a  close  fine  grass 
starred  in  spring  with  infinitesmal  squills  and  forget-me-nots. 
But  mostly  the  glaucous  rushes,  neither  definitely  blue  nor 
green  nor  gray,  occupied  the  landscape.  Close  at  hand  they 
were  vitreous  in  color  and  texture,  but  at  a  distance  and  in 
the  mass  they  seemed  to  have  the  velvety  bloom  of  a  green 
almond  or  grape.  Life  of  a  kind  was  always  present  in  the 
scud  of  rabbits,  in  the  song  of  larks  and  click  of  stonechats, 
in  the  dipping  steel-blue  flight  of  the  wheatear  and  ruffled 
chestnut  feathers  of  the  whinchat.  Yet  as  the  explorer  stum- 
bled in  and  out  of  the  burrows,  forcing  a  prickly  advance 
through  the  sharp  rushes  and  often  plunging  ankle  deep  in 
drifts  of  sand,  life  was  more  apparent  in  the  towans  them- 
selves than  in  the  presence  of  the  birds  and  beasts  haunting 
their  solitude.  The  sand  was  veritably  alive  in  its  power  to 
extract  from  the  atmosphere  every  color  and  quality.  Some- 
times it  was  golden,  sometimes  almost  snow-white.  Near  sun- 
set mauve  and  rose  and  salmon-pink  trembled  in  waves  upon 
its  surface,  and  as  it  caught  fire  to  welcome  day,  so  it  was 
eager  to  absorb  night.  Moonlight  there  was  dazzling  when, 
in  a  cold  world,  it  was  possible  to  count  the  snail-shells  like 


The  Alien  Corn  353 

pearls  and  watch  the  sand  trickle  from  rabbit-skulls  like  pow- 
dered silver. 

Perhaps  Jenny  had  never  looked  so  well  placed  as  when, 
with  May  beside  her  in  a  drift  of  sand,  she  rested  against  the 
flat  fawns  and  creams  and  distant  blues  and  grays  of  the  back- 
ground. Years  ago  when  she  danced  beneath  the  plane  tree, 
her  scarlet  dress  by  long  use  had  taken  on  the  soft  texture  of 
a  pastel.  Now  she  herself  was  a  pastel,  indescribably  appro- 
priate to  the  setting,  with  her  rose-leaf  cheeks  buried  in  the 
high  collar  of  a  lavender-colored  frieze  coat,  with  her  yellow 
curls  and  deep  blue  eyes,  deeper  with  the  loss  of  their  merri- 
ment. Her  hands,  too,  were  very  white  in  the  clear  sea  air. 
May  sitting  beside  her  looked  dark  as  a  pine  tree  against  an 
April  larch.  If  Jenny  was  coral.  May  was  ivory.  Here  they 
sat  while  the  sea  wind  lisped  over  the  sand.  Jenny  marked 
the  beauty  of  the  country  the  more  carefully  because  she  disliked 
so  intensely  the  country  people.  Every  day  the  sisters  went 
for  long  walks,  and  when  IVIay  was  tired  she  would  sit  on 
the  beach,  while  Jenny  wandered  on  by  the  waves'  edge. 

November  went  by  with  silver  skies  and  silver  sunsets,  with 
clouds  of  deepest  indigo  and  pallid  effulgences  of  sun  streaming 
through  traveling  squalls.  Days  of  swirling  rain  came  in  with 
December,  when  Jenny  would  have  to  sit  in  the  long  room, 
listening  to  the  hiss  of  the  wind-whipped  elms,  watching  the 
geranium  petals  lie  sodden  all  about  the  paths,  and  the  gulls, 
blown  inland,  scattered  on  the  hillsides  like  paper.  The  nights 
were  terrible  with  their  hollow  moanings  and  flappings,  with 
the  whistle  and  pipe  of  the  chimneys,  with  crashing  of  unclosed 
doors,  with  rattled  lattices  and  scud  and  scream  and  shriek 
and  hum  and  roar  of  the  wild  December  storms.  Every  morn- 
ing would  break  to  huge  shapes  of  rain  swept  up  the  valley, 
one  after  another  until  the  gales  of  dawn  died  away  to  a  steady 
drench  of  water.  Then  Jenny  would  sit  in  the  hot  room, 
where  the  slab  glowed  quietly  into  the  mustiness,  and  idly  turn 
the  damp-stained  pages  of  year-old  periodicals,  of  mildewed 
calendars,  even  of  hymn-books.    At  last  she  would  sally  forth 


354  Carnival 

desperately,  and  after  a  long  battle  with  wind  or  gurgling 
walk  through  mud  and  wet,  she  would  return  to  a  smell  of 
pasties  and  safiFron  cake  and  sometimes  the  cleaner  pungency 
of  marinated  pilchards. 

Some  time  before  Christmas  the  gales  dropped;  the  wind 
veered  releasing  the  sun,  and  for  a  fortnight  there  was  fleckless 
winter  weather.  These  were  glorious  mornings  to  wander 
down  through  the  west  garden  past  the  escallonias  aromatic  in 
the  sunlight,  past  the  mauve  and  blue  and  purple  veronicas, 
out  over  the  watery  meadows  and  up  the  hill-sides,  where  the 
gorse  was  almond-scented  about  midday  in  the  best  of  the 
sun.  Here  for  a  week  she  and  May  roamed  delightfully,  until 
they  found  themselves  in  a  field  of  bullocks  and,  greatly  terri- 
fied, went  back  to  the  seashore.  "Handsome  weather,"  old 
Mrs.  Trewhella  would  say,  watching  them  set  out  for  their 
long  walks,  and,  after  blinking  once  or  twice  at  the  sun, 
thumping  back  to  the  kitchen,  b:;ck  to  household  superin- 
tendence and  the  preparation  of  heavy  meals  for  the  farm 
workers.  Jenny  was  not  inclined  to  talk  much  with  them. 
They  lived  a  life  so  remote  from  hers  that  not  even  the  bridge 
of  common  laughter  could  span  the  gulf.  Dicky  Rosewarne, 
for  all  his  good  looks,  was  detestably  cruel  with  his  gins  and 
snares  and  cunning  pursuit  of  goldfinches  and,  worse,  his  fish- 
hooks baited  for  wild  duck.  Yet  he  was  kind  enough  to  the 
great  cart-horses,  conversing  with  them  all  work-time  in  a 
guttural  language  they  seemed  perfectly  to  comprehend.  Bessie 
Trevorrow,  the  dairymaid,  was  even  less  approachable  than 
Dicky.  She  had  the  shyness  of  a  wild  thing,  and  would  fly 
past  Jenny,  gazing  in  the  opposite  direction.  Once  or  twice, 
under  the  pressure  of  proximity,  they  embarked  upon  a  con- 
versation; but  Jenny  found  it  difficult  to  talk  well  with  a 
woman  who  answered  her  in  ambiguous  phrases  of  agreement 
or  vague  queries.  Old  Man  Veal  Jenny  disliked  since  on  one 
occasion  she  observed  him  bobbing  up  and  down  behind  a 
hedge  to  watch  her.  Thomas  was  her  favorite  among  the 
hands.     He  had  grown  used  to  bringing  her  curiosities  newly 


The  Alien  Corn  355 


found,  and  others  chosen  from  a  collection  that  extended  back 
to  his  earliest  youth.  These  he  would  present  for  her  inspec- 
tion, as  a  dog  lays  a  stick  at  his  mistress's  feet.  Jenny,  although 
she  was  profoundly  uninterested  by  the  cannon-ball  he  had 
found  wedged  between  two  rocks,  by  the  George  III  half- 
penny turned  up  by  the  plough,  by  his  strings  of  corks  and  bun- 
dles of  torn  nets,  was  nevertheless  touched  by  his  ofifer  to  strike 
a  "lemon"  for  her  under  a  jam-jar  in  the  spring.  Nor  did 
she  listen  distastefully  to  the  long  sing-song  tales  with  which 
he  entertained  May. 

The  fine  weather  lasted  right  up  to  Christmas  Day.  Vio- 
lets bloomed  against  the  white  stones  that  edged  the  garden 
paths.  Wallflowers  wore  their  brown  velvet  in  sheltered  cor- 
ners and,  best  of  all,  bushes  of  Brompton  stocks  in  a  sweetness 
of  pink  and  gray  scented  the  rich  Cornish  winter.  Jenny  and 
May  would  wander  up  and  down  the  garden  with  Granfa, 
while  the  old  man  would  tell  in  his  high  chant  tales  as  long 
as  Thomas's  of  by-gone  Australian  adventures,  tales  ripened 
in  the  warmth  of  spent  sunshine,  and  sometimes  stories  of  his 
own  youth  in  Trewinnard  with  memories  of  maids'  eyes  and 
lads'  laughter.  Then  in  January  came  storm  on  storm,  dark 
storms  that  thundered  up  the  valley,  dragging  night  in  their 
wake.  Lambing  went  on  out  in  the  blackness,  a  dreadful  ex- 
perience, Jenny  thought,  when  Zachary  came  in  at  all  hours, 
sometimes  stained  with  blood  in  the  lantern  light.  Jenny  was 
scarcely  aware  of  her  husband  in  the  daytime.  The  volubility 
which  had  distinguished  his  conversation  in  London  was  not 
apparent  here.  Indeed,  he  scarcely  spoke  except  in  monosylla- 
bles, and  spent  all  his  time  working  grimly  on  the  farm.  He 
did  not  seem  to  notice  Jenny,  and  never  inquired  into  her 
manner  of  passing  the  day.  She  was  his,  safe  and  sound  in 
Cornwall,  a  handsome  property  like  a  head  of  fine  stock.  He 
had  desired  her  deeply  and  had  gained  his  desire.  Now, 
slim  and  rosy,  she  was  still  desirable;  but,  as  Jenny  herself 
half  recognized,  too  securely  fastened,  too  easily  attainable  for 
any  misgiving.     She  certainly  had  no  wish  for  a  closer  inti- 


356 


Carnival 


macy,  and  was  very  thankful  for  the  apparent  indifference 
which  he  felt  towards  her.  She  would  have  been  horrified, 
had  he  suggested  sharing  her  walks  with  May,  had  lie  wanted 
to  escort  them  over  Trewinnard  Sr.nds,  or  worst  of  all,  had  he 
invited  her  to  sit  beside  him  on  his  Sunday  drives  to  preach 
at  distant  chapels.  He  did  not  even  bother  her  to  come  and 
hear  him  preach  in  Trewinnard  Free  Church.  Yet  as  the 
weeks  went  by,  Jenny  came  to  think  that  he  regarded  her 
more  than  she  thought  at  first.  He  often  seemed  to  know 
where  she  had  been  without  being  informed.  When  she  com- 
plained about  Old  Man  Veal's  spying  on  her,  Zachary  laughed 
oddly,  not  much  annoyed  presumably  by  his  servant's  indiscre- 
tion. Jenny  tried  sometimes  to  imagine  what  Trewinnard 
would  have  been  like  without  her  sister.  The  fancy  made  her 
shudder.  With  May,  however,  it  was  like  a  rather  long,  pleas- 
antly dull  holiday. 

February  brought  fair  days,  scattered  shining  celandines  like 
pieces  of  gold  over  the  garden  beds,  set  the  stiff  upright  daffo- 
dil buds  drooping  and  was  all  too  soon  driven  out  by  the 
bleakest  March  that  was  ever  known,  a  fierce,  detestable  month 
of  withering  east  winds,  of  starved  primroses,  and  dauntless 
thrushes  singing  to  their  nests  in  the  shaken  laurustinus.  Jenny 
began  to  hate  the  country  itself  now,  when  all  she  could  see 
of  it  was  savage  and  forbidding  as  the  people  it  brfed. 

In  the  middle  of  this  gray  and  blasted  month,  Jenny  be- 
came aware  that  she  was  going  to  have  a  baby.  This  discovery 
moved  her  principally  by  a  sudden  revival  of  self-consciousness 
so  acute  that  she  could  scarcely  compel  herself  to  break  the 
news  even  to  May.  It  seemed  such  an  absurd  fact  when  she 
looked  across  the  table  at  Zachary  somberly  munching  his 
pasty.  She  could  hardly  bear  to  sit  at  meals,  dreading  every 
whisper  and  muffled  giggle  from  the  lower  end  of  the  table. 
Although  the  baby  would  not  arrive  till  September,  and 
although  she  tried  to  persuade  herself  that  it  was  impossible 
for  anyone  to  discern  her  condition,  her  own  knowledge  of  it 
dismayed  her. 


The  Alien  Corn  357 

"But  it'll  be  nice  to  have  a  baby,"  said  May. 

"What,  in  this  unnatural  house?  I  don't  think.  Oh,  May, 
whate\'er  shall  I  do?     Can't  I  go  away  to  have  it?" 

"Why  don't  you  ask  him?"  suggested  May. 

"Don't  be  silly,  how  can  I  tell  him  anything  about  it?" 

"He's  got  to  know  some  time,"  May  pointed  out. 

"Yes,  but  not  yet.  And  then  you  can  tell  the  old  woman 
and  she  can  tell  him,  and  I'll  hide  myself  up  in  the  bedroom 
for  a  week.  Fancy  all  the  servants  knowing.  What  a  dread- 
ful thing!     Besides,  it  hurts." 

"Well,  it's  no  use  for  you  to  worry  about  that  part  of  it 
now,"  said  May.     "I  call  it  silly." 

"I  hope  it'll  be  a  boy,"  said  Jenny.  "I  love  boys.  I  think 
they're  such  rogues." 

"I'd  rather  it  was  a  girl,"  said  May. 

"Perhaps  it  don't  matter  which  after  all,"  Jenny  decided. 
"A  boy  would  be  nicest,  though,  if  you  loved  the  man.  Be- 
cause you'd  see  him  all  over  again.  Perhaps  I'd  rather  have 
a  girl.  I  expect  she'd  be  more  like  me.  Poor  kid!"  she  added 
to  herself,  meditating. 

During  April  the  subject  was  put  on  one  side  by  mutual 
consent.  There  was  no  immediate  necessity  for  bother;  but 
Jenny's  self-consciousness  made  her  unwilling  to  wander  any 
more  over  the  towans,  for  all  that  the  weather  was  very  blue 
and  white,  and  the  sheltered  sand-drifts  pleasantly  warm  in 
the  spring  sun.  Jenny,  however,  felt  that  every  rush-crowned 
ridge  concealed  an  inquisitive  head.  She  knew  already  how 
curious  the  country  people  were,  and  that  Old  IVIan  Veal  was 
no  exception.  Once  she  had  walked  through  Trewinnard 
Churchtown  near  dusk,  and  had  been  horribly  aware  of  bob- 
bing faces  behind  every  curtained  window,  faces  that  bobbed 
and  peered  and  followed  every  movement  and  gesture  of  her 
person. 

Therefore  IVIay  and  Jenny  determined  to  withdraw  all  op- 
portunity from  inquisitiveness  by  exploring  the  high  cliffs 
behind  Bochyn.     They  climbed  up  a  steep  road  washed  very 


358 


Carnival 


bare  bj-  the  sea  wind,  but  pleasant  enough  with  its  turfed 
hedges  fluttering  with  the  cowslips  that  flourished  in  a  narrow 
streak  of  limestone.  At  the  top  the  road  ran  near  the  clifF's 
edge  through  gorse  and  heather  and  moorland  scrub.  They 
found  a  spot  v/here  the  cliff  sloped  less  precipitous  in  a  green 
declivity  right  down  to  the  sea.  This  slope  was  gay  with  sea- 
pinks  and  fragrant  with  white  sea-campion.  Primroses  pat- 
terned the  turf,  and  already  ferns  were  uncrumpling  their 
fronds.  Below  them  the  sea  was  spread  like  a  peacock's  tail 
in  every  lustrous  shade  of  blue  and  green.  Half-way  down 
they  threw  themselves  full  length  on  the  resilient  cushions  of 
grass  and,  bathed  in  sunshine,  listened  to  the  perpetual  scream- 
ing of  the  gulls  and  boom  of  the  waves  in  caverns  round 
the  coast. 

"Not  so  dusty  after  all,"  said  Jenny  contentedly.  "It's  nice. 
I  like  it  here." 

"Isn't  it  lovely  and  warm?"  said  May. 

So  they  buzzed  idly  on  with  their  sunlit  gossip  and  drowsy 
commentaries,  until  a  bank  of  clouds  overtook  the  sun  and 
the  water  became  leaden.     Jenny  shivered. 

"Somebody  sitting  on  my  grave,"  she  said.  "But  it's  nice 
here.    Nicer  than  anywhere  we've  walked,  I  think." 


chapter  XXXIX:  Intermezzo 

CIRCUMSTANCES  made  it  necessary  that  before  the 
end  of  the  month  May  should  inform  old  Mrs.  Tre- 
whella  of  Jenny's  expected  baby. 

"What  did  she  say?"  Jenny  inquired  when  the  interview  was 
over. 

"She  said  she  thought  as  much." 

"What  a  liberty.  Why?  Nobody  could  tell  to  look  at  me. 
Or  I  hope  not." 

"Yes,  but  her!"  commented  May.  "She's  done  nothing  all 
her  life  only  make  it  her  business  to  know.  They're  all  like 
that  down  here.  I  noticed  that  very  soon  about  country 
people." 

"What  else  did  she  say?"  Jenny  went  on  with  for  her 
unusual  persistence.  She  was  not  yet  able  to  get  rid  of  the 
idea  that  there  was  something  remarkable  in  Jenny  Pearl 
going  to  have  a  baby.  Not  even  the  universal  atmosphere  of 
fecundity  which  pervaded  the  farm  could  make  this  fact  a 
whit  more  ordinary. 

"She  didn't  say  much  else,"  related  May,  not  rising  to  the 
solemnity  of  the  announcement,  the  revolutionary  and  shat- 
tering reality  of  it. 

"But  she's  going  to  tell  him?"  Jenny  asked. 

"That  made  her  laugh." 

"What  did?" 

"Her  having  to  tell  him." 

"Why?"  demanded  Jenny  indignantly. 

"Well,  you  know  they're  funny  down  here.     I  tell  you  they 

359 


360 


Carnival 


don't  think  nothing  about  having  a  baby.     No  more  than  pick- 
ing a  bunch  of  roses,  you  might  say." 

This  humdrum  view  of  childbirth,  although  it  might  have 
relieved  her  self-consciousness,  was  not  at  all  welcome  to 
Jenny.  She  could  not  bring  herself  to  believe  that,  when  after 
so  many  years  of  speculation  on  this  very  subject,  she  herself 
was  going  to  have  a  baby,  the  world  at  large  would  remain 
profoundly  indifferent.  She  remembered  how  as  a  child  she 
had  played  with  dolls,  and  how  in  the  foggy  weeks  before 
Christmas  she  had  been  wont  to  identify  her  anticipation  with 
the  emotional  expectancy  of  young  motherhood.  And  now  it 
was  actually  in  the  slow  process  of  happening,  this  event,  hap- 
pening, too,  as  far  as  could  be  judged,  without  any  violent  or 
even  mildly  perceptible  transfiguration,  mental  or  physical. 
Still  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Mrs.  Trewhella  had  divined 
her  condition.  By  what?  Certainly  not  at  present  by  her 
form  or  complexion. 

"I  think  it's  your  eyes,"  said  May. 

"What's  the  matter  with  them  now?" 

"They  look  different  somehow.  Sort  of  far-away  look  which 
you  didn't  use  to  have." 

"Shut  up,"  scoffed  Jenny,  greatly  embarrassed. 

That  evening  when,  after  tea,  Jenny  leaned  against  the 
stone  hedge  under  a  sunset  of  rosy  cumulus,  Trewhella  came 
through  the  garden  and  faced  her. 

"So  you  and  me's  going  to  have  a  child,  missus?" 

Jenny  resented  the  assumption  of  his  partnership  and  gave 
a  cold  affirmative. 

"That's  a  good  job,"  he  sighed,  staring  out  into  the  air 
stained  with  crimson  from  twilight's  approach.  "I  feel  brim 
pleased  about  that.  There'll  be  some  fine  Harvest  Home  to 
Bochyn  come  September  month." 

Then  from  the  vagueness  of  such  expressed  aspirations 
Zachary  turned  to  a  practical  view  of  the  matter  on  hand, 
regarding  his  wife  earnestly  as  he  might  from  the  support  of 
a  gate  have  looked  discriminatingly  at  a  field  of  young  wheat. 


Intermezzo  361 

"Is  there  anything  you  do  want?"  he  presently  inquired. 

Perhaps  the  cool  straightness  of  the  question  contained  a 
hint  of  expert  advice,  as  if  for  his  field  he  would  prescribe 
phosphates  or  nitrate  or  sulphate  of  ammonia.  There  was 
no  suggestion  of  spiritual  needs  that  might  call  out  for  nour- 
ishment under  the  stress  of  a  new  experience.  Jenny  felt  that 
she  was  being  sized  up  with  a  view  to  the  best  practical  con- 
duct of  the  agitating  business. 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  talk  about  me,"  she  protested,  "like 
you  talked  about  that  cow  the  other  day  at  dinner." 

Trewhella  looked  perplexed.  He  never  seemed  able  to 
grasp  whether  this  sharp-voiced  Londoner  whom  he  had  mar- 
ried were  laughing  at  him  or  not. 

"I've  always  heard  it  spoken,"  he  began  slowly.  He  always 
proceeded  slowly  with  a  conversation  that  held  a  warning  of 
barbed  wire,  as  if  by  disregarding  the  obstacle  and  by  cau- 
tious advance  any  defense  could  be  broken  down. 

"I've  always  heard  it  spoken  that  the  women  do  dearly  love 
something  or  other  at  such  times.  Mother  used  to  tell  how 
before  I  were  born,  she  were  in  a  terrible  hurry  to  eat  a  Cor- 
nish Gillyflower.  But  there  wasn't  one  tree  as  bore  an  apple 
that  year.  Irish  Peaches?  Ess,  bushels.  No,  that  wouldn't  do 
for  her.  Tom  Putts?  Sweet  Larks?  Ess,  bushels.  No  more 
wouldn't  they  serve.  Boxers?  Sops  and  Wines?  Ess,  bushels, 
and,  darn  'ee,  they  made  her  retch  to  look  at  'em." 

"She'd  properly  got  the  pip,  hadn't  she?"  observed  Jenny 
mockingly. 

Trewhella  saw   the  wire  and   made  a  circuit. 

"So  I  was  thinking  you  might  be  wanting  something  as  I 
could  get  for  'ee  on  market-day  to  Camston." 

"No,  thanks,  there's  nothing  I  want.  Not  even  a  penny 
pomegranate,"  said  Jenny,  who  was  anxious  for  Zachary  to  go. 
She  did  not  like  this  attempt  at  intimacy.  She  had  not  foreseen 
the  alliance  of  sympathy  he  presumably  wished  to  form  on 
account  of  her  child.  The  more  she  considered  his  claim,  the 
more  irrational   and  impertinent  did   it  seem  that  he  should 


362  Carnival 

dare  assume  any  share  in  the  unborn  miracle  worked  by  Jenny 
Pearl. 

Trewhella  pulled  himself  together,  still  progressing  slowly, 
even  painfully,  but  braced  to  snap  if  necessary  every  strand  of 
barbed  wire  still  between  him  and  his  object. 

"What  I  were  going  to  say  to  'ee  was,  now  that  there's  this 
lill  baby,  I'd  like  for  'ee  both  to  go  chapel.  I've  said  nothing 
so  far  about  your  not  going;  but  I  daren't  run  up  against 
the  dear  Lord's  wrath  in  the  matter  of  my  baby." 

"Don't  be  silly,"  said  Jenny.  "How  can  anything  happen 
to  my  baby  without  its  happening  to  me?" 

"Well,  I'd  like  for  'ee  to  come,"  Trewhella  persisted. 

Here  was  Jenny  in  a  quandary.  If  she  refused,  according 
to  her  fiery  first  impulse,  what  religious  pesterings  would  fol- 
low her  round  the  garden.  How  he  would  drawl  in  that  un- 
natural manner  of  speech  a  lot  of  rubbish  which  had  nothing 
to  do  with  her.  He  might  even  take  to  preaching  in  bed.  He 
had  once  frightened  her  by  demanding  in  a  sepulchral  specu- 
lation whether  she  had  ever  reflected  that  the  flames  of  hell 
were  so  hot  that  there  a  white-hot  poker  would  be  cool  as 
ice-cream.  If  on  the  other  hand  she  submitted  to  a  few  hours' 
boredom,  what  an  amount  of  treasured  liberty  would  be  sacri- 
ficed and  what  more  intrusive  attempts  might  not  be  made  upon 
the  inviolable  egoism. 

"But  I  don't  like  church  and  chapel,"  said  Jenny.  "It 
doesn't  interest  me." 

Then  she  saw  her  husband  gathering  his  eloquence  for 
wearisome  argument  and  decided  to  compromise — and  for 
Jenny  to  compromise  meant  character  in  the  melting-pot. 

"I  might  come  once  and  again,"  she  said. 

Trewhella  seemed  relieved  and,  after  a  moment's  awkward- 
ness in  which  he  gave  her  the  idea  that  he  was  on  the  verge 
of  thanks,  departed  to  his  business. 

So,  not  on  the  following  Sunday,  for  that  would  have  looked 
like  too  easy  a  surrender,  but  on  the  Sunday  after  that,  Jenny 
and   May  went  in   the   wake   of   the  household   to   the   Free 


Intermezzo  363 

Church — a  gaunt  square  of  whitewashed  stone,  whose  interior 
smelt  of  varnish  and  stale  hymn-books  and  harmonium  dust. 
The  minister,  a  compound  of  suspicion,  petty  authority  and 
deep-rooted  servility,  had  bicycled  from  Camston  and  had  in 
consequence  a  rash  of  mud  on  his  coat.  Without  much  fire, 
gnawing  his  mustache  when  in  need  of  a  word,  he  gave  a 
dreary  political  address  in  which  several  modern  statesmen 
were  allotted  prototypes  in  Israel.  The  mean  Staffordshire 
accent  destroyed  whatever  beauty  was  left  to  his  maimed 
excerpts  from  Holy  Scripture. 

"What  a  terrible  man!"  whispered  Jenny  to  May. 

Presently  during  the  extempore  prayers,  when  the  congre- 
gation took  up  the  more  comfortable  attitude  of  prayer  by 
bending  towards  their  laps,  Jenny  perceived  that  the  eyes  of 
each  person  were  surreptitiously  fixed  on  her.  She  could  see 
the  prying  sparkle  through  coarse  fingers — a  sparkle  that  was 
instantly  quenched  when  she  faced  it.  Jenny  prodded 
May. 

"Come  on,"  she  whispered  fiercely.  "I'm  going  out  of  this 
dog's  island." 

May  looked  alarmed  by  the  prospect  of  so  conspicuous  an 
exit,  but  loyally  followed  Jenny  as  they  picked  their  way  over 
what  seemed  from  their  upright  position  a  jumble  of  corpses. 
An  official,  either  more  indomitably  curious  or  less  anxiously 
self-repressive  than  the  majority,  hurried  after  them. 

"Feeling  slight,  are  'ee,  missus?"  inquired  this  red-headed 
farmer. 

"No,  thanks,"  said  Jenny. 

"It  do  get  very  hot  with  that  stove  come  May  month.  I 
believe  it  ought  to  be  put  out.     And  you're  not  feeling  slight?" 

"No,  thanks." 

The  m.'in  seemed  unwilling  to  go  back  inside  the  chapel ; 
but  the  two  girls  walked  quickly  away  from  him  down  through 
the  deserted  village. 

After  dinner  the  incident  was  discussed  with  some  bitter- 
ness. 

24 


3^4 


Carnival 


"How  did  'ee  go  out  of  chapel  like  that?"  asked  Tre- 
whella. 

"Because  I  don't  go  to  a  chapel  or  a  church  neither  to  be 
stared  at.  It's  a  game  of  mine  played  slow,  being  stared  at  by 
a  lot  of  old  crows  like  them  in  there." 

Jenny  defiantly  surveyed  Zachary,  his  mother  and  old  Mr. 
Champion,  while   May  murmured  encouragement  behind  her. 

"  'Tisn't  paying  any  great  respect  to  the  dear  Lord,"  said 
Trewhella.  "Trooping  out  like  a  lot  of  great  bullocks!  I 
went  so  hot  as  lead." 

"  'Tisn't  paying  any  great  respect  to  the  dear  Lord,  staring 
at  two  women  when  you  belong  praying,"  said  Granfa 
severely. 

"Darn  'ee,"  said  Trewhella  savagely.  "  'Tis  nothing  to  do 
Vk^ith  you,  a  heathen  old  man  as  was  once  seen  picking  wrinkles 
oiif  the  rocks  on  a  Sunday  morning." 

"I  believe  it  is  then,"  said  Granfa  stoutly.  "I  believe  that 
it's  got  a  brae  lot  to  do  with  me  and,  darn  'ee,  if  it  hasn't " 

He  thumped  the  table  so  that  all  the  crockery  rattled.  This 
roused  Mrs.  Trewhella,  who  had  been  blinking  in  silence. 

"Look,  see  what  you're  doing,  Granfa.  You'll  scat  all  the 
cloam,"  she  cried  shrilly. 

Trewhella,  having  surveyed  Jenny's  defenses,  began  his  usual 
slow  advance. 

"What  nobody  here  seems  to  understand  is  my  feelings 
when  I  seed  my  missus  making  a  mock  of  holy  things." 

"Oh,  rats!"  cried  Jenny,  flouncing  angrily  from  the  room. 

Nothing  could  persuade  her  to  humor  Zachary  so  far  as  to 
go  to  chapel  a  second  time.  It  pleased  her  to  contemplate  his 
anxiety  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  unborn  child.  "I  wish 
you'd  wrastle  with  the  devil  a  bit  more,"  he  said.  But  she 
v/ould  only  set  her  lips  obstinately,  and  perhaps  under  his 
mother's  advice,  Zachary  gradually  allowed  the  subject  to 
drop. 

Jenny  and  May  went  often  to  the  cliffs  in  the  fine  weather, 
mostly   to    Crickabella    (such   was   Granfa's   name    for    their 


Intermezzo  365 

favorite  slope),  where  summer  marched  by  almost  visibly. 
The  sea-pinks  turned  brown,  the  sea-campion  decayed  to  an 
untidy  mat  of  faded  leaves  and  flowers.  Bluebells  came  up 
in  asparagus-like  heads  that  very  soon  broke  into  a  blue  mist 
of  perfume.  The  ferns  grew  taller  every  day,  and  foxgloves 
waved  right  down  to  the  water's  edge.  On  the  moorland  be- 
hind the  cliffs,  heather  and  burnet  roses  bloomed  with  azure 
scabious  and  white  mothmulleins,  ladies'  tresses  and  sweet 
purple  orchids.  Here  and  there  grew  solitary  columbines,  which 
Jenny  thought  were  lovely  and  carried  home  to  Granfa,  who 
called  them  Blue  Men's  Caps.  Remote  from  curious  eyes, 
remote  from  life  itself  save  in  the  progress  of  inanimate  things 
towards  the  accomplishment  of  their  destiny,  she  dreamed  un- 
ceasingly day  after  day  amid  the  hollow  sounding  of  the  ocean, 
watching  idly  the  metallic  green  flight  of  the  shags,  the  tim- 
orous adventures  of  rock  pipits,  and  sometimes  the  graces  of 
a  seal. 

With  the  advance  of  summer  Jenny  began  to  dread  ex- 
tremely the  various  insects  and  reptiles  of  the  country.  It 
was  vain  for  Thomas  to  assure  her  that  apple-bees  did  not 
Sting  without  provocation,  that  eeriwigs  were  not  prone  to 
attack,  that  piskies  were  harmless  flutterers  and  neither  Johnny 
Jakes  nor  gram'ma  sows  actively  malicious.  These  rural  in- 
cidents of  a  wasp  on  a  hat  or  a  woodlouse  in  a  sponge  were 
to  her  horrible  events  which  made  her  tremble  in  the  recollec- 
tion of  them  long  afterwards.  The  state  of  her  health  did 
not  tend  to  allay  these  terrors,  and  because  Crickabella  was 
comparatively  free  from  insects,  that  lonely  green  escarpment, 
flung  against  the  black  ramparts  of  the  towering  coast,  was 
more  than  ever  dear  to  Jenny. 

In  July,  however,  she  was  not  able  to  walk  so  far  as  Cricka- 
bella, and  was  forced  to  pass  all  her  days  in  the  garden,  gaz- 
ing at  the  shimmering  line  of  the  hills  opposite.  Granfa  Cham- 
pion used  to  spend  much  time  in  her  company,  and  was  con- 
tinually having  to  be  restrained  from  violent  digging  in  the 
heat.     During  August  picture  post-cards  often  arrived   from 


366 


Carnival 


girls  spending  their  holidays  at  Margate  or  Brighton,  post- 
cards that  gave  no  news  beyond,  "Having  a  fine  old  time.  Hope 
you're  alright,"  but,  inasmuch  as  they  showed  that  there  was 
still  a  thought  of  Jenny  in  the  great  world  outside,  very  wel- 
come. 

August  dragged  on  with  parched  days,  and  cold  twilights 
murmurous  with  the  first  rustle  of  autumn.  Jenny  began  to 
work  herself  up  into  a  state  of  nervous  apprehension,  brood- 
ing over  childbirth,  its  pain  and  secrecy  of  purpose  and  ulti- 
mate responsibilities.  She  could  no  longer  tolerate  the  com- 
ments passed  upon  her  by  Mrs.  Trewhella  nor  the  furtive  in- 
quisitiveness  of  Zachary.  She  gave  up  sitting  at  dinner  with 
the  rest  of  the  household,  and  was  humored  in  this  fad  more 
perhaps  from  policy  than  any  consideration  of  affection.  The 
only  pleasure  of  these  hot  insufferable  days  of  waiting  was  the 
knowledge  that  Zachary  was  banished  from  her  room,  that 
once  more,  as  of  old.  May  would  sleep  beside  her.  There  was 
a  new  experience  from  the  revival  of  the  partnership  because 
now,  unlike  the  old  theater  days,  Jenny  would  often  be  the 
first  in  bed  and  able  to  lie  there  watching  in  the  candlelight 
May's  shadow  glance  hugely  about  the  irregular  ceiling,  like 
Valerie's  shadow  long  since  in  the  Glasgow  bedroom.  Where 
was  Valerie  now?  But  where  was  anybody  in  her  history? 
Ghosts,  every  one  of  them,  where  she  was  concerned. 


chapter  XL  :    Harvest  Home 

ALL  day  long  the  whirr  of  the  reaper  and  binder  had 
rattled  from  distant  fields  in  a  monotone  of  sound 
broken  at  regular  intervals  by  guttural  cries  when 
the  horses  at  a  corner  turned  on  their  tracks,  and  later  in  the 
afternoon  by  desultory  gunshots,  when  from  the  golden  tri- 
angle of  wheat  rabbits  darted  over  the  fresh  stubble.  All  day 
long  Jenny,  obeying  some  deep  instinct,  prepared  for  the 
ordeal.  The  sun  blazed  over  the  spread  harvest;  the  fields 
crackled  with  heat;  the  blue  sky  seemed  to  close  upon  the 
earth,  and  not  even  from  the  whole  length  of  Trewinnard 
Sands  was  heard  a  solitary  ripple  of  the  tide.  In  the  garden 
the  claret-colored  dahlias  hung  down  their  tight,  uncomfort- 
able flowers ;  geraniums,  portulacas,  nasturtiums,  sunflowers  and 
red-hot  pokers  burned  in  one  furnace  of  bloom.  Red  admiral 
butterflies  soared  lazily  up  and  down  against  the  gray  walls 
crumbling  with  heat,  and  from  flower  to  flower  of  the  scarlet 
salvias  zigzagged  the  hummingbird  hawkmoths,  Granfa 
Champion,  wiping  with  gaudy  bandana  his  forehead,  came  out 
to  plant  daffodil  bulbs  stored  in  the  green  shadows  of  a  cool 
potting  shed. 

"Now,  you  know  you  mustn't  go  digging  in  this  sun,  Mr. 
Champion,"  said  reproving  May, 

"My  cheeks  are  so  hot  as  pies,"  declared  Granfa. 

"Do  come  and  sit  down  with  us,"  said  Jenny. 

"I  believe  I  mustn't  start  tealing  yet  awhile,"  said  the  old 
man,  regretfully  plunging  his  long  Cornish  spade  into  the  baked 
earth,  from  which  insufficient  stability  the  instrument  fell  with 
a  thump  on  to  the  path. 

367 


368 


Carnival 


"Well,  how  are  'ee  feeling,  my  dear?"  asked  Granfa,  stand- 
ing before  Jenny  and  mopping  his  splendid  forehead.  "None 
so  frail,  I  hope?" 

"She  isn't  feeling  at  all  well.    Not  to-day,"  said  May. 

"That's  bad,"  said  Granfa.     "That's  poor  news,  that  is." 

"I  feel  frightened,  Mr.  Champion,"  said  Jenny  suddenly. 
Somehow  this  old  man  recalled  Mr.  Vergoe,  rousing  old  im- 
pulses of  childish  confidence  and  revelation. 

"Feeling  frightened,  are  'ee?     That's  bad." 

"Supposing  it  wasn't  a  person  at  all?"  said  Jenny  des- 
perately.    "You  know,  like  us?" 

The  old  man  considered  for  a  moment  this  morbid  fancy. 

"That's  a  wisht  old  thought,"  he  said  at  last,  "and  I  don't 
see  no  call  for  it  at  all.  When  I  do  teal  a  lily  root,  I  don't 
expect  to  see  a  broccolo  come  bursting  up  and  annoying  me." 

"But  it  might,"  argued  Jenny,  determined  not  to  be  con- 
vinced out  of  all  misgiving. 

"Don't  encourage  her,  Mr.  Champion,"  said  May  severely. 
"Tell  her  you  think  she's  silly." 

Jenny  buried  her  face  in  her  hands  and  began  to  cry. 
Granfa  looked  at  her  for  a  moment;  then,  advocating  silence 
with  his  right  forefinger,  with  his  left  thumb  he  indicated  to 
May  by  jabbing  it  rapidly  backwards  over  his  shoulder  that 
inside  and  upstairs  to  her  bedroom  was  the  best  place  for 
Jenny. 

So  presently  she  was  lying  on  the  tapestried  bed  in  the  tem- 
pered sunlight  of  her  room,  while  through  the  house  in  whis- 
pers ran  the  news  that  it  might  be  any  time  now.  Up  from 
downstairs  sounded  the  restlessness  of  making  ready.  The 
sinking  sun  glowed  in  the  heart  of  every  vivid  Brussels  rose 
and  bathed  the  dusty  floor  with  orange  lights.  Jenny's  great 
thought  was  that  never  again  would  she  endure  this  agony,  if 
but  this  once  she  were  able  to  survive  it.  She  vowed,  tearing 
in  savage  emphasis  the  patchwork  counterpane,  that  nothing 
should  induce  her  to  suffer  like  this  a  second  time. 

The  afternoon  faded  tranquilly  into  dusk.     No  wind  agi- 


Harvest  Home  369 

tated  a  single  dewy  petal,  and  only  the  blackbirds  with  inter- 
mittent alarums  broke  the  silence.  The  ripe  round  moon  of 
harvest,  floating  mild  and  yellow  and  faintly  luminous  along 
the  sky,  was  not  yet  above  the  hills.  Mrs.  Trewhella  was  not 
yet  willing  to  despatch  a  summons  to  the  doctor.  Two  more 
hours  sank  away.  Out  in  the  fields,  marching  full  in  the 
moon's  face,  the  reapers  went  slowly  homewards.  Out  in  the 
fields  they  sang  old  songs  of  the  earth  and  the  grain ;  out  in 
the  waste  the  fox  pricked  his  ears  and  the  badger  turned  to 
listen.  Down  in  the  reeds  the  sedge- warbler  lisped  through 
the  low  ground  vapors  his  little  melody.  The  voices  of  the 
harvesters  died  aw-ay  in  purple  glooms,  and  now,  as  if  in  a 
shell,  the  sea  was  heard  lapping  the  sand.  Through  the  open 
lattice  rose  the  scent  of  the  tobacco  plants.  There  was  a  mur- 
mur of  voices  in  consultation.  Jenny  heard  a  shout  for 
Thomas,  and  presently  horses'  hoofs  trotting  down  the  farm 
road. 

High  and  small  and  silver  was  the  moon  before  she  heard 
them  coming  back.  The  dewdrops  were  all  diamonds,  the 
wreathed  vapors  were  damascened  by  moonlight,  before  she 
heard  the  grate  of  wheels  and  the  click  of  the  gate  and  an- 
other murmur  of  voices.  Then  the  room  was  filled  with  black 
figures;  entering  lamplight  seemed  to  magnify  her  pain,  and 
Jenny  knew  little  more  until,  recovering  from  chloroform,  she 
perceived  a  candle,  large  as  a  column,  burning  with  giant 
spearhead  of  flame  and,  beyond  the  blue  and  silver  lattice, 
apprehended  a  fuss  of  movement. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked  in  momentary  perplexity. 

"  'Tis  a  boy,"  said  Mrs.  Trewhella.     "A  grand  lill  chap." 

"What's  all  that  noise?"  she  murmured  petulantly. 

"  'Tis  me,  my  dear  soul,"  said  Mrs.  Trewhella,  "putting 
all  straight  as  we  belong." 

May  leaned  over  her  sister,  squeezing  her  hand. 

"I  think  I  shall  like  having  a  baby,"  said  Jenny,  "when  we 
can  take  him  out  for  walks.  You  know,  just  you  and  me, 
young  May." 


chapter  XLI :    Columbine  Happy 

JENNY  was  ivory  now:  the  baby  had  stolen  all  the  coral 
from  her  cheeks.  Outside,  the  treetops  shook  tremu- 
lous black  lace  across  the  silver  deeps  of  the  sky  and 
jigged  with  ebony  boughs  upon  the  circle  of  the  moon.  Clear 
as  bells  sounded  the  slow  breakers  on  Trewinnard  beach,  and 
in  the  tall  room  a  white  moth  circled  round  the  candle-flame 
interminably.     A  rat  squeaked  in  the  wall. 

"Fancy,"  said  Jenny  to  May,  who  sat  in  the  shadow  by  the 
foot  of  the  bed.  "I  thought  I  shouldn't  like  nursing  a  baby, 
but  I  think  it's  glorious." 

A  curlew  cried  through  the  October  night  and  was  an- 
swered far  down  the  valley. 

"I  wish  mother  could  have  seen  my  baby,"  sighed  Jenny. 
"It's  my  birthday  next  week.  Funny  if  we'd  both  been  born 
the  same  day." 

The  candle  spat  with  the  moth's  death,  then  burned  with  re- 
newed brightness. 

"Time  the  rogue  went  to  sleep,"  said  May  authoritatively, 

"Feel  his  hands,"  said  Jenny.     "They're  like  velvet  bows." 

"They  are  lovely 'and  soft,  aren't  they?"  May  agreed. 

"Won't  the  girls  talk  when  they  hear  about  my  baby?" 

"Rather,"  said  May  reassuringly. 

"I  expect  they'll  wonder  if  he's  like  me." 

Remote  winds  muttered  over  the  hill-side,  and  the  curlews 
set  up  a  chorus  of  chattering. 

"Night's  lovely  with  a  baby,"  said  Jenny,  and  very  soon 
fell  asleep. 

370 


Chapter  XLII:  Shaded  Sunlight 


THE  naming  of  the  boy  caused  considerable  discussion 
in  Bochyn.  Indeed,  at  one  stage  of  the  argument 
a  battle  seemed  imminent.  Jenny  herself  went  out- 
right for  Eric. 

"Never  heard  no  such  a  name  in  all  my  life,"  affirmed  Tre- 
whella. 

"You  must  have  been  about  a  lot,"  said  Jenny  sarcastically. 

"I  think  Eric's  nice,"  urged  May,  in  support  of  her  sister's 
choice. 

"I  never  heard  the  name  spoken  so  far  as  I  do  remember," 
Mr.  Champion  put  in,  "but  that's  nothing  against  it  as  a  name. 
As  a  name  I  do  like  it  very  well.  To  be  sure  'tis  a  bit  after 
Hayrick,  but  again  that's  nothing  against  a  farmer's  son." 

"I  don't  like  the  name  at  all,"  said  old  Mrs.  Trewhella. 
"To  me  it  do  sound  a  loose  sort  of  a  name." 

"Oh,  'tis  no  name  at  all,"  Zachary  decided.  "How  do  'ee 
like  it,  my  dear?"  he  asked,  turning  to  Jenny. 

"I  don't  know  why  I  like  it,"  she  answered,  "but  I  do." 

"There's  a  grand  old  name  down  Church,"  said  Granfa 
meditatively.  "A  grand,  old,  rolling,  cut-a-piece-off-and-come- 
again  sort  of  a  name,  but  darn  'ee  if  I  can  remember  it.  Ess 
I  can  now.  Athanacious!  Now  that's  a  name  as  will  make 
your  Jack  or  your  Tom  look  very  hungry.  That's  a  name, 
that  is!" 

Impressive  as  sounded  Granfa's  trumpeting  of  it,  everybody 
felt  that  nowadays  such  a  mouthful  would  hamper  rather  than 
benefit  the  owner.  As  for  Jenny,  she  declared  frankly 
against  it. 

37» 


37  2  Carnival 

"Oh,  no,  Granfa,  not  in  these!  Why,  it  would  drive  any- 
one silly  to  say  it,  let  alone  write  it.  I  wish  it  was  a  girl  and 
then  she  could  have  been  called  Eileen,  which  is  nice." 

Trewhella  looked  anxiously  at  the  subject  of  the  discussion 
as  if  he  feared  his  wife  could  by  some  alchemy  transmute  the 
sex  of  the  baby. 

"I  should  dearly  love  to  call  the  lill  chap  Matthew  or  Mark 
or  Luke,"  he  said.  "John  I  don't  take  no  account  of.  I  do 
call  that  a  poor  ornary  unreligious  sort  of  a  name  for  an 
Evangelist." 

"I  don't  like  John  at  all,"  said  Jenny  emphatically. 

"Then  there's  Abraham  and  Jacob,"  Zachary  continued. 
"And  Abel  and  Adam." 

"And  Ikey  and  Moses,"  Jenny  scoffingly  contributed. 

"How  not  Philip?"  suggested  old  Mrs.  Trewhella. 

"Or  Nicholas?"  said  May. 

"Call  him  Satan  straight  away  at  once!"  commented  the 
father  bitterly. 

"I  like  a  surname  sometimes,"  said  Jenny  thoughtfully.  "I 
once  knew  a  boy  called  Presland.  Only  we  used  to  call  him 
Bill  Hair.  Still  Eric's  the  nicest  of  all,  /  think,"  she  added, 
returning  to  her  first  choice. 

The  argument  went  on  for  a  long  while.  At  times  it  would 
verge  perilously  on  a  dispute,  and  in  the  end,  in  accordance 
with  Jenny's  new  development  of  character,  a  compromise  was 
affected  between  Eric  and  Adam  by  the  substitution  of  Frank 
for  both  and,  lest  the  advantage  should  seem  to  incline  to 
Jenny's  side  too  far,  with  Abel  as  a  second  name,  where  its 
extravagance  would  pass  unnoticed. 

Winter  passed  away  uneventfully  except  as  regards  the  daily 
growth  of  young  Frank.  There  was  no  particularly  violent 
storm,  nor  any  wreck  within  ten  miles  of  the  lonely  farm- 
house. When  the  warm  days  of  spring  recurred  frequently, 
it  became  necessary  to  find  a  pleasant  place  for  idle  hours  in 
the  sun.  Crickabella  was  too  far  away  for  a  baby  to  be  taken 
there,  and  Jenny  did  not  like  the  publicity  of  the  front  garden, 


Shaded  Sunlight  373 


exposed  equally  to  Zachary's  periodical  inspections  and  Mrs. 
Trewhella's  grandmotherly  limps  away  from  housekeeping. 
Mr.  Champion,  when  informed  of  all  this,  cordially  agreed 
with  Jenny  that  the  front  garden  was  no  place  at  all  under 
the  circumstances  and  promised  to  go  into  the  matter  of  a 
secure  retreat. 

So  presently,  on  one  of  those  lazy  mornings  when  April 
pauses  to  survey  her  handiwork,  assuming  in  the  contemplation 
of  the  proud  pied  earth  the  warmth  and  maturity  of  midsum- 
mer, Granfa  beckoned  to  Jenny  and  May  and  young  Frank  to 
follow  his  lead.  He  took  them  out  at  the  back,  past  the 
plashy  town-place,  past  a  commotion  of  chickens,  and  up  a 
rocky  lane,  whose  high,  mossy  banks  were  blue  with  dog-violets 
and  twinkling  white  with  adders'  eyes.  The  perambulator 
bumped  over  the  loose  stones,  but  young  Frank,  sleeping  ad- 
mirably, never  stirred;  while  his  rosy  cheeks  danced  with  rip- 
ples of  light  shaken  down  through  the  young-leafed  elms.  Not 
too  far  up  they  came  to  a  rickety  gate,  which  Granfa  dragged 
open  to  admit  his  guests;  and  almost  before  they  knew  where 
they  were,  they  stood  buried  in  the  apple-blossoms  of  a  small 
secluded  orchard  cut  off  from  the  fields  around  by  thick  hedges 
of  hawthorn. 

"Whai  a  glorious  place!"  Jenny  cried  enthusiastically.  "Oh, 
I  do  thmk  this  is  nice." 

Mr.  Champion,  his  hair  looking  snowy  white  in  the  rosy 
flush  of  blossom,  explained  the  fairylike  existence  of  the  close. 

"This  old  orchard  was  never  scat  up  with  the  others.  Tiiey 
burnt  they  up  in  a  frizz  of  repenitence.  The  Band  of  Hope 
come  and  scat  them  all  abroad  with  great  axes,  shouting  Halle- 
lujah and  screaming  and  roaring  so  as  anyone  was  ashamed 
to  be  a  human  creature.  Darn  'ee,  I  was  so  mad  when  I 
heard  tell  of  it,  I  lived  on  nothing  but  cider  almost  for  weeks, 
though  'tis  a  drink  as  do  turn  me  sour  all  over." 

"Idiots,"  said  Jenny.  "But  why  didn't  they  pull  this  to 
pieces?    There  must  be  lots  of  apples  here." 

"It  got  avoided  somehow,  and  Zachary  he  just  left   it  go; 


374  Carnival 

but  'tis  a  handsome  place,  sure  enough.  You'll  dearly  love  sit- 
ting here  come  summertime." 

"Rather!"   Jenny   and   May   agreed. 

Already  in  isolated  petals  the  blossom  was  beginning  to 
flutter  down;  but  still  the  deserted  orchard  was  in  the  perfec- 
tion of  its  beauty.  Down  in  the  cool  grass,  fortified  against 
insects  and  dampness  by  many  rugs,  Jenny  and  May  and  young 
Frank  used  to  lie  outstretched.  They  could  see  through  the 
pink  and  white  lace  of  blossom  deep,  distant  skies,  where  for 
unknown  landscapes  the  cuckoos  struck  their  notes  on  space 
like  dulcimers;  they  could  hear  the  goldfinch  whistle  to  his 
nest  in  the  lichened  fork  above  and  wind-blown  in  treetops 
the  copperfinch's  burst  of  song.  They  could  listen  to  the  green- 
finch calling  sweetly  from  the  hawthorn  hedge,  while  tree- 
creepers  ran  like  mice  up  the  gray  bark  and  woodpeckers  flirted 
in  the  grass.  The  narcissus  bloomed  here  very  fragrant,  con- 
tending wild-eyed  with  daisies  and  buttercups.  There  was 
mistletoe — marvelous  in  the  reality  of  its  growth,  but  at  the 
same  time  to  Jenny  rather  unnatural.  And  later,  when  the 
apple-blossom  had  fallen,  eglantine  and  honeysuckle  and  trav- 
elers' joy  flung  themselves  prodigally  over  the  trees,  and  when 
the  birds  no  longer  sang,  it  did  not  matter,  such  an  enchanted 
silence  of  infinitely  minute  country  sounds  took  their  place. 

As  for  young  Frank,  he  was  to  his  mother  and  aunt  a  won- 
der. He  opened  his  eyes  very  often,  and  very  often  he  shut 
them.  He  kicked  his  legs  and  uncurled  his  fingers  like  a 
kitten  and  twitched  ecstatically  to  baby  visions.  He  cried  very 
seldom  and  laughed  very  often,  and  crooned  and  dribbled  like 
many  other  babies;  but  whether  or  not  the  intoxication  of  the 
sweet  close  urged  him  to  unparagoned  agilities  and  precocities, 
there  was  no  doubt  at  all  that,  in  the  companionship  of  elves, 
he  enjoyed  life  very  much  indeed. 

"He  looks  like  an  apple  lying  there,"  said  Jenny.  "A  great 
round,  fat,  rosy  apple.     Bless  his  heart." 

"He  is  a  rogue,"  said   May. 

"Oh,   May,  he  is  a  darling!     Oh,  I  do  think  he's  lovely. 


Shaded  Sunlight  375 


Look  at  his  feet,  just  like  raspberries.     He  isn't  much  like  h'lm, 
is  he?" 

"No,  he's  not,"  said  May  emphatically.     "Not  at  all  like." 
"I  don't  think  he's  much  like  anybody,  I  don't,"  said  Jenny, 
contemplating  her  son. 

It  might  have  seemed  to  the  casual  onlooker  that  Arcadia 
had  recompensed  Jenny  for  all  that  had  gone  before;  and, 
indeed,  could  the  whole  of  existence  have  been  set  in  that  in- 
closure  of  dappled  hours,  she  might  have  attained  sheer  content- 
ment. Even  Jenny,  with  all  she  had  longed  for,  all  she  had 
possessed  and  all  she  had  lost,  might  have  been  permanently 
happy.  But  she  was  no  sundial  marking  only  the  bright  hours; 
life  had  to  go  on  when  twilight  came  and  night  fell.  Young 
Frank,  asleep  in  golden  candlelight,  could  not  mitigate  the  in- 
jury of  her  husband's  presence.  Even  young  Frank,  best  and 
most  satisfying  of  babies,  was  the  son  of  Zachary ;  would,  when 
he  grew  out  of  babyhood,  contain  alien  blood.  There  might 
then  be  riddles  of  character  which  his  mother  would  never 
solve.  Strange  features  would  show  themselves,  foreign  eyes, 
perhaps,  or  a  mouth  which  knew  no  curve  of  her  own.  Now 
he  was  adorably  complete,  Jenny's  own  against  the  world ;  and 
yet  he  was  a  symbol  of  her  subjugation.  Already  Zachary 
was  beginning  to  use  their  boy  to  consolidate  his  possession  of 
herself.  Already  he  was  talking  about  the  child's  education 
and  obviously  making  ready  for  an  opportunity  to  thrust  him 
into  religious  avarice  and  gloom.  The  arrival  of  young  Franit 
had  apparently  increased  the  father's  tendency  to  brood  over 
the  darker  problems  of  his  barbarous  creed.  He  talked  of 
young  Frank,  who  would  surely  inherit  some  of  the  Raeburp 
joy  of  life,  as  if  he  would  grow  up  in  suspicion,  demon-haunted, 
oppressed  with  the  fear  of  God's  wrath,  a  sour  and  melancholy 
dreamer  of  damnable   drean>,. 

Zachary  took  to  groaning  aloud  over  the  sins  of  his  fellow* 
men,  would  groan  and  sweat  horribly  in  the  imagination  of 
the  unappeasable  cruelty  of  God.  These  outbreaks  of  despair 
for  mankind  were  the  more  obnoxious  to  Jenny  because  they 


37^ 


Carnival 


were  always  followed  by  a  monstrous  excess  of  his  privileges, 
by  an  utterly  abhorred  affectionateness.  Mr.  Champion,  the 
outspoken,  clear-headed  old  man,  would  often  remonstrate  with 
his  nephew.  Once,  while  Trewhella  was  in  a  spasm  of  misery 
groaning  for  his  own  sins  and  the  sins  of  the  world,  a  sick 
cow  died  in  audible  agony  on  account  of  his  neglect. 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed,  you  foolish  man,"  said  Granfa. 
"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  leave  the  poor  animal  die.  Darn 
'ee,  I  believe  the  devil  will  have  'ee!" 

"What's  a  cow,"  said  Trewhella  somberly,  "beside  my  own 
scarlet  sins?" 

"  'Tis  one  of  the  worst  of  'em,"  said  Granfa  positively. 
"  'Tis  so  scarlet  as  wool.  Get  up,  and  leave  be  all  your  pray- 
ing and  sweating,  you  foolish  man.  You  do  drive  me  plum 
mad  with  your  foolishness.  How  don't  'ee  do  your  own  work 
fittee  and  leave  the  dear  Lord  mind  his  own  business?  He 
don't  want  to  be  told  at  his  time  of  life  what  to  do.  Oh,  you 
do  drive  me  mad." 

"Another  lost  lamb,"  groaned  Trewhella.  "Another  soul 
in  the  pit.  Oh,  I  do  pray  wi'  all  my  heart  that  my  poor  lill 
son  may  find  favor  in  the  Lord's  eyes  and  become  a  child  of 
grace  to  preach  the  Word  and  confound  the  Gentiles." 

"Did  ever  a  man  hark  to  such  nonsense  in  his  life?"  ex- 
claimed Granfa. 

"I  shouldn't  argue  with  him  in  one  of  his  moods,"  advised 
Jenny,  looking  at  her  husband  coldly  and  distastefully. 

"Oh,  dear  Lord,  give  me  strength  to  heal  the  blindness  of 
my  family  and  make  my  poor  lill  son  a  sword  in  the  side  of 
unbelievers." 

Then  presently  the  gloom  would  pass;  he  would  go  out 
silently  to  the  fields,  and  after  a  day's  work  come  back  in  a 
fever  of  earthly  desires  to  his  wife. 

There  were  shadows  in  Bochyn,  for  all  the  sunlight  and 
birdsong  and  sweetpeas  blossom. 


Chapter  XLIII:    Bow  Bells 

SUMMER  went  by  very  quickly  in  the  deserted  or- 
chard, and  in  fine  September  weather  young  Frank's 
first  birthday  was  celebrated  with  much  goodwill  by 
everybody.  Zachary,  with  the  successful  carrying  of  a  rich 
harvest,  ceased  to  brood  so  much  on  the  failure  of  humanity. 
He  became  his  own  diligent  self,  amassing  grain  and  gold  and 
zealously  expurgating  for  reproduction  in  bleak  chapels  that 
winter  a  volume  of  sermons  by  an  Anglican  bishop.  Young 
Frank  began  to  show  distinct  similarities  of  feature  to  Jenny, 
similarities  that  not  even  the  most  critical  observer  could  de- 
molish. He  showed,  too,  some  of  her  individuality,  had  a 
temper  and  will  of  his  own,  and  seemed  like  his  mother  born 
to  inherit  life's  intenser  emotions.  Jenny  was  not  yet  inclined 
to  sink  herself  in  him,  to  transfer  to  the  boy  her  own  activity 
of  sensation.  Mrs.  Raeburn  was  thirty-three  when  Jenny  was 
born:  young  Frank  arrived  when  his  mother  was  ten  years 
younger  than  that.  It  was  not  expected  tliat  she  should  feel 
the  gates  of  youth  were  closed  against  her.  Moreover,  Jenny, 
with  all  the  fullness  of  her  experience,  was  strangely  young 
on  the  eve  of  her  twenty-fourth  birthday,  still  seeming,  indeed, 
no  more  than  eighteen  or  nineteen.  There  was  a  divine  youth- 
fulness  about  her  which  was  proof  against  the  Furies,  and, 
since  the  diverting  absurdities  of  young  Frank,  laughter  had 
come  back.  Those  deep  eyes  danced  again  for  one  who  from 
altitudes  of  baby  ecstasies  would  gloriously  respond.  May 
was  another  triumph  for  affection.  There  was  joy  in  regard- 
ing that  little  sister,  once  wan  with  Islington  airs,  now  happy 

377 


378 


Carnival 


and  healthy  and  almost  as  rose-pink  as  Jenny  herself.  How 
pleased  her  mother  would  have  been,  and,  in  retrospect,  how 
skeptical  must  she  have  felt  of  Jenny's  ability  to  keep  that 
promise  always  to  look  after  May. 

Life  was  not  so  bad  on  her  birthday  morning,  as,  with  one 
eye  kept  continuously  on  young  Frank,  Jenny  dressed  herself 
to  defy  the  blusterous  jolly  October  weather.  She  thought 
how  red  the  apples  were  in  the  orchard  and  with  what  a 
plump  they  fell  and  how  she  and  May  had  laughed  when  one 
fell  on  young  Frank,  who  had  also  laughed,  deeming  against 
the  evidence  of  his  surprise  that  it  must  be  matter  for  merri- 
ment. 

The  postman  came  that  morning,  and  Granfa,  waving  his 
arms,  brought  the  letters  up  to  the  orchard — two  letters,  both 
for  Jenny.  He  watched  for  a  minute  her  excitement  before 
he  departed  to  a  pleasant  job  of  digging  in  the  champagne  of 
October  sunlight. 

"Hullo,"  cried  Jenny,  "here's  a  letter  from  Maudie  Chap- 
man." 

26  Alverton  Street, 

PiMLICO. 

Dear  old  Jenny, 

Suddenly  remembered  it  was  your  birthday,  old  girl. 
Many  Happy  Returns  of  The  Day,  and  hope  you're  in  the 
best  of  pink  and  going  on  fine  the  same  as  I  am.  We  have  got 
■a  new  stage  manager  who  you  would  laugh  to  see  all  the  girls 
think.  We  have  been  rehearsing  for  months  and  I'm  sick  of 
It — You're  well  out  of  the  Orient  I  give  you  my  word.  Its  a 
dogs'  Island  now  and  no  mistake.  Walter  sends  his  love.  I 
have  got  a  little  girl  called  Ivy.  She  is  a  love.  Have  you? 
With  heaps  of  love 

from  your  old  chum,  Maudie. 

Irene's   gone   ofF  with  that   fellow   Danbie   and   Elsie  had 
twins.     Her  Artie  was  very  annoyed  about  it.     Madge  Wilson 


Bow  Bells  379 

as  got  a  most  glorious  set  of  furs.     No  more  from  Maudie — 
Write  us  a  letter  old  girl. 

"Fancy,"  said  Jenny.     "Elsie  Crauford's  had  twins." 

This  letter,  read  in  the  open  air,  with  a  sea  wind  traveling 
through  the  apple  trees,  with  three  hundred  miles  of  country 
between  the  sender  and  the  receiver,  was  charged  with  London 
sorcery.  It  must  have  been  posted  on  the  way  to  the  theater. 
Incredible  thouf2;ht!  Jenny  visualized  the  red  pillar-box  into 
which  it  might  have  slipped,  a  pillar-box  station  by  a  crowded 
corner,  splashed  by  traffic  and  jostled  by  the  town.  On  the 
flap  was  a  round  spot  of  London  rain,  and  pervading  all  the 
paper  was  a  faint  theater  scent.  The  very  ink  was  like  eye- 
black,  and  Maudie  must  have  written  every  word  laboriously 
between  two  glittering  ballets. 

"I  wonder  if  I  could  do  a  single  beat  now?"  said  Jenny.  "I 
wish  I  hadn't  given  my  new  ballet  shoes  to  Gladys  West." 

Then  as  once  she  danced  under  the  tall  plane  tree  of  Hag- 
worth  Street  to  a  sugared  melody  of  "Cavalleria,"  so  now  she 
danced  in  an  apple  orchard,  keeping  time  to  the  wind  and 
the  waving  boughs.  Young  Frank  quivered  and  kicked  with 
joy  to  see  the  twirling  of  his  mother's  skirts.  May  cried,  "You 
great  tomboy!"  but  with  robin's  eyes  and  slanting  head 
watched  her  sister. 

Had  she  been  a  poet,  Jenny  would  have  sung  of  London,  of 
the  thunder  and  grayness,  of  the  lamps  and  rain,  of  long  irre- 
sistible rides  on  the  top  of  swaying  tramcars,  of  wild  roars 
through  the  depth  of  the  earth  past  the  green  lamps  flashing 
to  red.  She  danced  instead  about  the  sea-girt  orchard-close 
all  that  once  her  heart  had  found  in  London.  She  danced 
the  hopes  of  many  children  of  Apollo,  who  work  so  long  for 
so  little.  She  danced  their  disillusions,  their  dreams  of  immor- 
tality, their  lives,  their  marriages,  their  little  houses.  She 
danced  their  fears  of  poverty  and  starvation,  their  work  and 
effort  and  strife,   their  hurrying  home   in  the  darkness.     She 

danced  their  middle  age  of  growing  families  and  all  their  re- 
'■>^ 


38o 


Carnival 


newed  hopes  and  disappointments  and  contentments.  She 
danced  a  little  of  the  sorrow  and  all  the  joy  of  life.  She 
danced  old  age  and  the  breathing  night  of  London  and  the 
sparrow-haunted  dawn.  She  danced  the  silly  little  shillings 
which  the  children  of  Apollo  earn.  Fifteen  pirouettes  for  fif- 
teen shillings,  fifteen  pirouettes  for  long  rehearsals  and  long 
performances,  fifteen  pirouettes  for  a  week,  fifteen  pirouettes 
for  no  fame,  fifteen  pirouettes  for  fifteen  shillings,  and  one 
high  beat  for  the  funeral  of  a  marionette. 

And  all  the  time  the  gay  October  leaves  danced  with  her  in 
the  grass. 

"Well,  I  hope  you've  enjoyed  yourself,"  said  May.  Jenny 
threw  herself  breathless  on  the  outspread  rug  and  kissed  young 
Frank. 

"I  don't  suppose  I  shall  ever  dance  again." 

"What  about  the  other  letter?"  asked  May. 

"There,  if  I  didn't  forget  all  about  it,"  cried  Jenny.  "But 
who's  it  from?     What  unnatural  writing!     Like  music." 

She  broke  the  seal. 

Pump  Court,  Temple. 
My  dear  Jenny, 

I  think  I've  been  very  good  not  to  worry  you  long  be- 
fore this;  but  I  do  want  to  write  and  wish  you  many  happy 
returns.  Will  you  accept  my  thoughts?  I  got  your  address 
and  history  from  Maudie  Chapman  whom  I  met  last  week.  I 
wonder  if  I  came  down  to  Cornwall  for  a  few  days,  if  you 
would  let  me  call  on  you.  If  you're  annoyed  by  this  letter, 
just  don't  answer.    I  shall  perfectly  understand. 

Yours  ever, 

Frank  Castleton. 

"Fancy,"  said  Jenny.  "I  never  knew  his  name  was  Frank. 
How  funny!" 

"Who  is  this  Frank?"  May  inquired. 

"A  friend  of  mine  I  knew  once — getting  on  for  nearly  four 
years  ago  now.    Where  could  anyone  stay  here?" 


Bow  Bel/s  3  8  I 

"There's  an  hotel  in  Trewinnard,"  said  May. 

Jenny  looked  at  young  Frank. 

"I  don't  see  why  I  shouldn't,"  she  said. 

"Shouldn't  what?" 

"Have  a  friend  come  and  see  me,"  Jenny  answered. 


Chapter  XLIV:    Picking  Up  Threads 

CASTLETON  arrived  at  Bochyn  under  a  November 
sunset,  whose  lemon  glow,  barred  with  indigo  banks 
of  cloud,  was  reflected  with  added  brightness  in  the 
flooded  meadows  and  widening  stream.  Jenny  in  the  firelight 
was  singing  and  rocking  her  baby  to  sleep.  She  jumped  up  to 
open  the  door  to  his  knock. 

"Why,  Fuz,"  she  said  simply. 

He  stood  enormous  against  the  last  gleams  of  day,  and  Jenny 
realized  with  what  small  people  she  had  been  living  so  long. 

"Jane,"  he  said,  "this  is  a  big  moment." 

He  followed  her  into  the  room  and  waited  while  she  lit  the 
lamp  and  pointed  with  warning  finger  to  the  child  asleep  in 
a  silence  of  ticking  clocks. 

"There's  a  surprise,  or  isn't  it?" 

"Rather,"  said  Castleton.     "It  looks  very  well." 

"Oh,  Fuz.  It!  You  are  dreadful.  He's  called  Frank,  and 
fancy,  I  never  knew  you  were  called  Frank  till  you  wrote  to 
me  last  month." 

"Another  disappointment,"  sighed  Castleton. 

"What?" 

"WTiy,  of  course  I  thought  you  altered  his  name  to  celebrate 
my  visit." 

"You  never  didn't?"  said  Jenny,  already  under  slow  rustic 
influences  not  perfectly  sure  of  a  remark's  intention.  Then 
suddenly  getting  back  to  older  and  lighter  forms  of  conversa- 
tion, she  laughed. 

"Well,  how  are  you,  Jenny?"  he  inquired. 

"Oh,  I'm  feeling  grand.    Where  are  you  staying?" 

382 


Picking  Up  Threads  383 

"The  One  and  All  Inn." 

"Comfortable?" 

"I  fancy  very,  from  a  quick  glance." 

"You'll  stay  and  have  tea  w^ith  us  and  meet  my  husband," 
Jenny  invited. 

"I  shall  be  proud." 

A  silence  fell  on  these  two  friends. 

"Well,  what  about  dear  old  London?"  said  Jenny  at  last. 

"It's  extraordinarily  the  same.  Let  me  see,  had  tubes  and 
taxis  been  invented  before  you  went  away?"  Castleton  asked. 

"Don't  be  silly.  Of  course,"  she  exclaimed,  outraged  by 
such  an  implication  of  antediluvian  exile. 

"Then  flatly  there  is  nothing  to  tell  you  about  London.  I 
was  at  the  Orient  the  other  night.  I  need  not  say  the  ballet 
was  precisely  the  same  as  a  dozen  others  I  have  seen,  and  you 
have  helped  at." 

"Any  pretty  new  gins?"  Jenny  asked. 

"I  believe  there  are  one  or  two." 

"How's  Ronnie  Walker?" 

"He  still  lives  more  for  painting  than  oy  painting,  and  has 
grown  a  cream-colored  beard." 

"Oh,  he  never  hasn't.     Then  he  ought  to  get  the  bird." 

"So  that  he  could  say:  'Four  owls  and  a  hen,  two  larks 
and  a  wren,  have  all  built  their  nests  in  my  beard'?  It  isn't 
big  enough,  Jane." 

"And  Cunningham,  how's  he?" 

"Cunningham  is  married.  I  don't  know  his  wife,  but  I'm 
told  she  plays  the  piano  a  great  deal  better  than  he  does.  As 
for  myself,"  said  Castleton  quickly,  "I  have  chambers  in  the 
Temple,  but  live  at  home  with  my  people,  who  have  moved 
to  Kensington.  There,  you  see  what  alarming  cataclysms  have 
shaken  the  society  you  deserted.    Now  tell  me  about  yourself." 

"Oh,  I  jog  along,"  said  Jenny. 

Further  reminiscence  was  interrupted  by  the  entrance  of 
Trewhella,  who  saluted  Castleton  suspiciously  and  from  shy- 
ness somewhat  brusquely. 


384 


Carnival 


"How  do  you  do  sir?"  said  the  guest,  conspicuously  agree- 
able. 

"I'm  very  well,  thank  'ee.     Come  far,  have  'ee?" 

"London." 

"That's  a  poor  sort  of  place.  I  was  there  once.  But  I  didn't 
take  much  account  of  it,"  said  Trewhella. 

"You  found  it  disappointing?" 

"Ess,  ess,  too  many  Cockneys  for  a  Cornishman.  But  I 
wasn't  robbed  over-much.    I  believe  I  was  too  sharp  for  them." 

"I'm  glad  of  that,"  said  the  representative  of  cities. 

"You  do  talk  a  lot  of  rot  about  London,"  said  Jenny  con- 
temptuously.    "As  if  you  could  know  an^Jthing  about  it!" 

"I  found  all  I  wanted,  my  dear,"  said  Trewhella  winking. 
He  seemed  in  a  mind  to  impress  the  foreigner. 

"By  carrying  off  Je — Mrs.  Trewhella,  eh?"  said  Castleton. 
"Come,  after  that,  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  grumble  at 
London." 

Trewhella  darted  a  suspicious  glance  as  if  to  demand  by  what 
right  this  intruder  dared  to  comment  on  his  behavior. 

The  presence  of  a  stranger  at  tea  threw  a  munching  silence 
over  all  the  lower  end  of  the  table ;  but  Castleton  made  a 
great  impression  on  Granfa,  who  asked  him  a  number  of  ques- 
tions and  sighed  admiration  for  each  new  and  surprising 
answer. 

"But  there's  one  thing  I  believe  you  can't  tell  me,"  said 
Granfa.     "Or  if  you  can,  you'm  a  marvel." 

"And  what  is  that?"  inquired  Castleton. 

"I've  asked  scores  of  men  this  question,"  said  Granfa 
proudly.  "Hundreds,  I  suppose,  and  there  wasn't  one  of  them 
could  give  me  an  answer." 

"You  really  alarm  me  this  time,"  said  Castleton. 

Granfa  braced  himself  by  swallowing  a  large  mouthful  of 
pasty  and  delivered  his  poser  almost  reverently. 

"Can  you  tell  me,  mister,  in  what  county  o'  Scotland  is 
John  o'  Groats?" 

"Caithness,  I  think,"  said  Castleton. 


Picking  Up  Threads  385 

Granfa  coughed  violent  appreciation  and  thumped  on  the 
table  in  amazement. 

"Hark,  all  you  men  and  maidens  down  to  the  end  of  the 
table!  I've  asked  that  question  in  Cornwall,  and  I've  asked 
that  question  in  Australia.  I've  asked  Scotchmen  even,  and 
I'm  a  brae  old  man  now.     But  there  wasn't  one  who  could 

speak  the  answer  till — till "  he  paused,  before  the  Cornish 

title  of  affection  and  respect — "Cap'n  Castleton  here  spoke  it 
straight  away  at  once.  Wish  you  well,  my  dear  son,"  he 
added  in  a  voice  rich  with  emotion,  as  he  thrust  an  open  hand 
over  a  bowl  of  cream  for  Castleton's  grip. 

Then  Granfa  told  his  old  intimate  tales  of  wrecks  and 
famous  seines  of  fish,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  offer  to  show 
Castleton  on  the  very  next  morning  the  corner  of  a  field  where 
with  two  legs  and  a  stick  he  could  stand  in  the  three  parishes 
of  Trenoweth,  Nancepean  and  Trewinnard.  In  fact  he  mo- 
nopolized the  guest  throughout  the  meal,  and  expressed  very 
great  regret  when  Castleton  had  to  return  to  the  One  and  All 
Inn. 

Trewhella  questioned  Jenny  sharply  that  night  about  the 
stranger,  tried  with  all  the  fox  in  his  nature  to  find  out  what 
part  he  had  played  in  her  life. 

"He's  a  friend  of  mine,"  she  said. 

"Did  he  ever  come  courting  'ee?" 

"No,  of  course  not.     You  don't  think  all  men's  like  you?" 

"What's  he  want  to  come  down  here  along,  if  he's  just  a 
friend?  Look,  missus,  don't  you  go  giving  the  village  tongues 
a  start  by  kicking  up  a  rig  with  yon  great  Cockney." 

"Shut  up,"  said  Jenny.     "Who  cares  about  the  village?" 

"I  do,"  said  Trewhella.  "I  care  a  brae  lot  about  it.  Me 
and  my  folk  have  lived  here  some  long  time  and  we've  always 
been  looked  up  to  for  clean,  decent  souls." 

"Get  out!"  scoffed  Jenny.  "And  don't  put  ideas  in  your 
own  head.     Village!     Talking  shop,  I  should  say." 

The  next  morning  was  fine,  and  when  Castleton  called  at 
Bochyn,  Jenny  intrusted  May  with  young  Frank  and  suggested 


386 


Carnival 


a  walk.  Granfa,  who  was  present  during  the  discussion  of 
the  itinerary,  declared  the  towans  must  be  visited  first  of  all. 
Jenny  was  rather  averse  from  such  a  direction,  thinking  of 
the  watchers  who  lay  all  day  in  the  rushes.  However,  when 
she  thought  how  deeply  it  would  infuriate  her  husband  to  know 
that  she  was  walking  over  that  solitude  in  the  company  of 
Castleton,  she  accepted  Granfa's  suggestion  with  a  deliberate 
audacity. 

It  was  pleasant  to  walk  with  Fuz,  to  laugh  at  his  excite- 
ment over  various  birds  and  flowers  unnoticed  by  her.  It  was 
pleasant  to  watch  him  trip  in  a  rabbit's  hole  and  roll  right 
down  to  the  bottom  of  a  sand-drift.  But  best  of  all  were  the 
rests  in  deep  dry  hollows  above  whose  edges  the  rushes  met 
the  sky  in  wind-waved,  sharply  cut  lines.  Down  there,  mak- 
ing idle  patterns  with  snail-shells,  she  could  listen  to  gossip  of 
dear  old  London.  She  could  smell  in  the  sea  air  wood  pave- 
ment and  hear  in  the  scurry  of  rabbits  passengers  by  the  Picca- 
dilly Tube. 

And  yet  there  was  a  gulf  not  to  be  spanned  so  readily  as  in 
the  tentative  conversations  of  a  single  walk.  Often  in  the 
middle  of  Castleton's  chronicles,  she  would  wish  desperately 
to  talk  of  events  long  buried,  to  set  out  before  him  her  life, 
to  argue  openly  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  deeds  that  so  far  she 
had  only  disputed  with  herself.  In  a  way  it  was  unsatisfac- 
tory to  pick  up  a  few  broken  threads  of  a  friendship,  leaving 
the  reel  untouched.  Perhaps  it  was  better  to  let  the  past  and 
the  present  alone.  Gradually  London  dropped  out  of  the  con- 
versation. She  wondered  if,  seeing  London  again,  she  would 
be  as  much  disappointed  as  by  the  tale  and  rumor  of  it  borne 
down  here  by  an  old  friend.  Gradually  the  conversation  veered 
to  the  main  occupations  of  Jenny's  mind — May  and  young 
Frank.  May's  future  was  easy  to  forecast.  She  must  in  these 
fresh  airs  grow  stronger  and  healthier,  and  supply  with  the 
passing  of  every  day  a  more  complete  justification  of  the  mar- 
riage. But  what  of  young  Frank's  future?  Jenny  could  not 
bear  the  notion  of  him  tied  to  the  soil.     She  wanted  his  life 


Picking  Up  Threads  387 

to  hold  experience  before  he  retreated  here  to  store  up  the 
grain  and  the  gold.  There  must  be  a  great  deal  of  her  in 
young  Frank.  He  could  not,  should  not  be  contented  with 
bullocks  and  pigs  and  straight  furrows. 

Castleton  listened  sympathetically  to  her  ambitions  for  the 
baby,  and  promised  faithfully  that  when  the  time  came,  he 
would  do  his  best  to  help  Jenny  achieve  for  her  son  at  least 
one  prospect  of  humanity,  one  flashing  opportunity  to  examine 
life. 

"You  see,  I  knew  what  I  wanted  when  I  was  quite  tiny. 
Of  course  nothing  was  what  I  thought  it  would  be.  Nothing. 
Only  I  wanted  to  go  on  the  stage  and  I  went.  I  shouldn't 
like  for  young  Frank  to  want  to  do  something  and  have  to 
stick  here." 

"You've  a  fine  notion  of  things,  Jane,"  said  Castleton.  "By 
gad,  if  every  mother  were  like  you,  what  a  race  we  should 
have." 

"I'm  not  in  a  hurry  for  him  to  do  anything." 

"I  meant  what  a  race  of  Englishmen,  not  bicycles,"  Castle- 
ton explained. 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  Jenny  vaguely.  He  was  taking  her  aspira- 
tions out  of  their  depth. 

"No,  but  I  do  think  it's  dreadful,"  she  went  on,  "to  see 
kids  moping  just  because  their  mothers  and  fathers  want  them 
to  stick  at  home.  My  mother  wasn't  like  that.  Yes,  she  used 
to  go  on  at  me,  but  she  always  wanted  me  to  enjoy  myself  so 
long  as  she  knew  there  was  no  harm  in  it." 

"Your  mother,  Jane,  must  have  been  a  great  woman." 

"I  don't  know  about  that,  but  she  was  a  darling,  and  always 
very  smart — you  know,  dressed  very  nice  and  had  a  good 
figure.  But  look  at  my  father.  He  sends  us  a  postcard  some- 
times with  a  picture  of  a  bed  or  a  bottle  of  Bass  on  it  which 
is  all  he  thinks  about.     And  yet  he's  alive,  and  she's  dead." 

Finally  Castleton  promised  that  should  young  Frank  display 
a  spark  of  ambition,  he  would  do  his  best  to  help  him 
achieve  it. 


388 


Carnival 


"Whatever  it  is,"  said  Jenny.  "Of  course  not  if  he  wants 
to  be  a  dustman,  but  anything  that's  all  right." 

Then,  the  morning  being  nearly  spent,  they  turned  back 
towards  Bochyn.  Castleton  mounted  on  a  slope  at  a  run  to 
pull  Jenny  up  from  above. 

"Hullo,"  he  cried,  "somebody's  been  watching  us." 

"They  always  do  on  these  towans,"  said  Jenny. 

"I'll  soon  haul  the  scoundrel  into  daylight,"  and  with  a 
shout  he  charged  down  through  the  rushes,  almost  falling  over 
the  prostrate  body  of  Old  Man  Veal.  Castleton  set  him  on 
his  feet  with  a  jerk  and  demanded  his  business,  while  Jenny 
with  curling  lips  stood  by.  The  old  man  would  not  say  a 
word,  and  his  captor,  balked  of  chastisement  by  his  evident 
senility,  let  him  shamble  of?  into  the  waste. 

"That's  one  of  the  men  on  the  farm,"  said  Jenny. 

"I  suppose  he'll  get  the  sack." 

"I  don't  think  so,  then.  I  think  he's  edged  on  by  someone 
else  to  follow  me  round." 


Chapter  XLV:    London  Pride 

JENNY  and  Castleton  followed  the  course  of  the  stream 
along  the  valley  towards  Bochyn.  The  bracken  was 
a  vivid  brown  upon  the  hillsides;  the  gorse  was  splashed 
with  unusual  gold  even  for  Cornwall;  lapwings  cried,  wheel- 
ing over  the  head  of  the  ploughman  ploughing  the  moist  rich 
earth;  a  flight  of  wild  duck  came  unerringly  down  the  valley, 
settling  with  a  great  splash  in  the  blue  and  green  marsh. 

Trewhella  met  them,  stepping  suddenly  out  from  a  grove  of 
arbutus  trees,  a  thunderous  figure. 

"What  do  'ee  mean?"  he  roared.  "What  do  'ee  mean  by 
carrying  my  missus  off  for  wagging  tongues?  Damn  ye,  you 
great  overgrown  Cockney,  damn  ye,  what  do  'ee  mean  to  come 
sparking  here  along?" 

By  Trewhella's  side  stood  his  dog,  a  coarse-coated,  wall-eyed 
brute,  half  bobtail,  half  collie.  Much  alike  seemed  the  pair 
of  them,  snarling  together  in  the  path. 

Jenny  whitened.  She  had  not  yet  seen  so  much  of  the  wolf 
m  her  husband.  Castleton  looked  at  her,  asking  mutely 
whether  he  should  knock  Trewhella  backwards  or  whether,  as 
the  world  must  be  truckled  to,  he  should  keep  quiet. 

"Shut  up,"  said  Jenny  to  her  husband.  "You  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  yourself.  What  do  you  think  I  am?  Your  serv- 
ant? Mind,  or  I  shall  tell  you  off  as  you've  never  been  told 
off  yet.  Let  me  pass,  please,  and  what's  more  let  my  friend 
pass.  Come  on,  Fuz.  Take  no  notice  of  him.  He's  potty. 
He's  soft.     Him!     Pooh!" 

She  gathered  her  skirts  round  her  as  if  to  negotiate  mud 

389 


390  Carnival 

and  swept  past  Zachary,  who,  all  wolf  now,  recoiled  for  his 
spring.    Castleton,  however,  seized  his  wrist,  saying  tranquilly : 

"I'm  afraid,  Mr.  Trewhella,  you're  not  very  well.  Good- 
bye, Mrs.  Trewhella.     I'll  come  round  this  afternoon,  then." 

Jenny  passed  on  towards  Bochyn  and  Trewhella  turned  to 
follow  her  at  once;  but  Castleton  still  held  him,  and  when- 
ever Jenny  looked  round  he  was  still  holding  him.  She  waited, 
however,  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden  for  Zachary's  return, 
strewing  the  ground  by  her  feet  with  spikes  of  veronica  blooms. 
Presently  he  appeared,  his  dog  running  before  him,  and  at  the 
sight  of  Jenny  shook  wildly  his  fists. 

"You  witch,"  he  cried.  "How  have  'ee  the  heart  to  make 
me  so  mad?  But  I  deserve  it.  Oh,  God  Almighty,  I  deserve 
it.     I  that  went  a-whoring  away  from  my  own  country." 

"Shut  up,"  Jenny  commanded.  "And  talk  decently  in  front 
of  me,  even  if  I  am  your  wife." 

"I  took  a  bride  from  the  Moabites,"  he  moaned.  "I  for- 
sook Thy  paths,  O  Lord,  and  went  lusting  after  the  heathen." 

He  fell  on  his  knees  in  the  shining  November  mud;  Jenny 
regarded  him  as  people  regard  a  man  in  a  fit. 

"Forgive  me,  O  God,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man.  I  have  gone 
fornicketing  after  lilywhite  doves  that  turned  to  serpents.  I 
have  coveted  the  love  of  woman  and  I  have  forsaken  Thy 
paths,  O  Lord.  I  ran  to  gaze  at  loose  women  dancing  in  their 
nakedness,  and " 

"Kindly  shut  up,"  Jenny  interrupted.  "And  don't  kneel 
there  like  a  lunatic  talking  about  me  as  if  I  hadn't  got  nothing 
on  when  you  saw  me.  Don't  do  it,  I  say,  because  I  don't 
like  it." 

Trewhella  rose  and  faced  his  wife.  The  drops  of  sweat 
stood  on  his  forehead  big  as  pebbles.  His  eyes  were  mad. 
She  had  seen  eyes  like  them  in  Ashgate  Asylum. 

"Why  were  'ee  sent  to  tempt  me?  Don't  'ee  know  I  do 
love  'ee  more  than  I  do  love  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven?" 

"Well,  I  wish  you  wouldn't.  It  doesn't  interest  me,  this 
love  of  yours  as  you  call  it.    And  you  needn't  carry  on  about 


London  Pride  3  9  i 


Mr.  Castleton,  because  he's  only  a  friend,  which  you  can't 
understand. 

Trewhella  began  to  weep. 

"I  thought  you  were  safe  down  here,"  he  said.  "I  thought 
I  held  'ee  safe  as  carried  corn,  and  when  I  brought  'ee  to 
Bochyn,  I  was  so  happy  as  a  piece  of  gold.  All  the  time  I've 
been  preaching,  I've  wished  to  be  home  along,  thinking  of  'ee 
and  wishing  I  held  'ee  in  my  arms  right  through  the  black  old 
night,  as  I  belong." 

Jenny  shuddered. 

"And  'tis  a  lawful  thought,"  he  cried  defiantly.  "You're 
my  wife,  you're  mine  by  the  power  of  the  Lord;  you're  mine 
by  the  right  of  the  flesh." 

"I'm  going  indoors,"  said  Jenny  coldly,  and  she  left  him 
raging  at  temptation.  Then  she  sat  down  and  wrote  to  Cas- 
tleton. 

Dear  Fuz, 

Perhaps  you  hadn't  better  come  and  see  me  again — I 
expect  you'll  think  I'm  mad,  but  it  isn't  any  good  to  have  rows 
because  I've  got  to  live  here  any  old  way. 

I  liked  seeing  3'ou,  dear  Fuz,  and  I'm  sorry  he  made  a  fool 
of  himself  and  I'll  write  some  day  about  young  Frank.  No 
more  now  from  your  little  friend, 

Jenny. 
Who  cares? 

She  gave  the  letter  to  Thomas,  who  took  it  down  to  the 
One  and  All.  It  was  Jenny's  inherent  breeding  that  made  her 
send  it.  All  her  pride  bade  her  insist  on  Castleton's  company, 
begged  her  to  defy  Trewhella,  and,  notwithstanding  scenes  the 
most  outrageous,  to  establish  her  own  will.  But  there  was 
Fuz  to  be  considered.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  implicate  him 
in  the  miserable  muddle  which  she  had  created  for  herself. 
He  belonged  to  another  life  where  farmers  did  not  grovel  in 
the  mud  before  Heaven's  wrath,  where  husbands  did  not  swear 
foully  at  wives,  asking  forgiveness  from  above  before  the  filthy 


392  Carnival 

echo  had  died  away.  Fuz  was  better  out  of  it.  Yet  she 
wished  she  could  see  him  again.  There  were  many  questions 
not  yet  asked. 

Trewhella  was  foxy  when  next  he  discussed  Castleton  with 
Jenny. 

"He  wasn't  too  careful  about  calling  of  'ee  Mrs.  Tre- 
whella," he  began. 

"Don't  be  silly.  He  always  knew  me  as  Jenny  in  the  old 
days." 

"Oh,  I  do  hate  to  hear  'ee  tell  of  they  old  days.  I  do  hate 
every  day  before  I  took  'ee  for  my  own." 

"I  can't  help  your  troubles  that  way,"  said  Jenny.  "Per- 
haps you'd  like  to  have  married  me  in  the  cradle?" 

"I'd  like  to  have  kept  'ee  locked  up  from  the  time  you 
were  a  frothy  maiden,"  he  admitted.  "I  do  sweat  when  I 
think  of  men's  eyes  staring  at  your  lovely  lill  body." 

Jenny  stamped  her  rage  at  the  allusion. 

"Yes,  you  ought  to  have  known  my  mother's  aunts,"  she 
said.  "They'd  have  suited  you,  I  think.  They  wanted  to  shut 
me  up  and  make  me  religious." 

The  emphasis  with  which  she  armed  her  reminiscence  gave 
the  verbs  an  undue  value,  as  if  the  aunts  had  intended  actually 
to  lock  her  in  a  larder  of  hymn-books. 

"I  wish  with  all  my  heart  they  had  done  so,"  said  Trewhella. 
"Better  that  than  the  devil's  palace  of  light  where  you  be- 
longed to  dance.     Oh,  I  wish  that  Cockney  were  in  Hell." 

"I  can't  do  more  than  ask  him  to  go  away,  so  don't  keep  on 
being  rude  about  my  friends,"  said  Jenny. 

"Ess,  and  I  wish  now  I'd  never  kicked  up  such  a  rig  and 
frightened  the  pair  of  'ee.  He  was  too  quick.  That's  where 
it's  to." 

"What  are  you  talking  about?" 

"Why,  if  I  hadn't  been  so  straight  out,  I  might  have  trapped 
you  both  fitty.     If  I'd  waited  and  watched  awhile." 

Trewhella  sighed  regretfully. 

"You  are  a  sneak,"  said  Jenny. 


London  Pride  393 

"Oh,  I  wish  I  could  see  your  heart,  missus.  Look,  I've 
never  asked  'ee  this  before.  How  many  men  have  loved  'ce 
before  I  did?" 

"Hundreds,"  said  Jenny  mockingly. 

"Kissed  'ee?"  shrieked  Trewhella. 

"Of  course.     Why  not?" 

Veins  wrote  themselves  across  his  forehead,  veins  livid  as 
the  vipers  of  Medusa. 

"Witch,"  he  groaned.  "  'Tis  well  I'm  a  saved  man  or  I 
might  murder  'ee.  Hark!  hark!  Murder  'ee,  you  Jezebel! 
I  do  know  now  what  Jehu  did  feel  when  he  cried,  'Throw  her 
down  and  call  up  they  dogs  and  tear  the  whore  to  pieces.'  " 

He  ran  from  the  room,  raving. 

After  this  new  fit  when  the  wolf  drove  out  the  fox,  Tre- 
whella settled  down  to  steady  cunning.  Jenny  became  con- 
scious of  being  watched  more  closely.  Not  even  the  orchard 
was  safe.  There  was  no  tree  trunk  that  might  not  conceal  a 
wormlike  form,  no  white  mound  of  sand  that  was  not  alive 
with  curiosity,  no  wind  even  that  was  not  fraught  with  whis- 
pered commentaries  upon  her  simplest  actions. 

Bochyn  could  no  longer  have  been  endured  without  young 
Frank  and  May  and  Granfa.  These  three  could  strip  the 
most  secretive  landscape  of  terrors,  could  heal  the  wildest  im- 
aginations. All  the  winter  through,  Trewhella  never  relaxed 
his  efforts  to  trip  her  up  over  her  relations  with  Castleton,  and 
compel  an  admission  of  the  bygone  love-af?air  that  would  not 
necessarily,  as  he  pointed  out,  involve  her  in  a   present   intrigue. 

"How  did  'ee  send  him  away,  if  there  was  nothing  at  all?" 

"Because  I'm  ashamed  for  any  of  my  friends  to  see  what 
sort  of  a  man  I've  married.      That's  why." 

"I'll  catch  'ee  out  one  day,"  vowed  Trewhella.  "You  do 
think  I'm  just  a  fool,  but  I'm  more,  missus;  I'm  brae  cunning. 
I  can  snare  a  wild  thing  wi'  any  man  in  Cornwall." 

"Fancy,"  Jenny  mocked. 

And  round  the  dark  farmhouse  the  winter  storms  howled  and 
roared,  beating  against  the  windows  and  ravening  by  the  latches. 


Chapter  XLVI:    Mav  Morning 

YOUNG  Frank  had  always  been  from  his  birth  an  ex- 
citement; but  as  he  neared,  reached  and  passed  his 
eighteenth  month,  the  geometrical  progression  of  his 
personality  far  exceeded  the  mere  arithmetical  progression  of 
his  age.  He  could  now  salute  with  smiles  those  whom  he 
loved,  was  empurpled  by  rage  at  any  repression,  and  was  able 
to  crawl  about  with  a  blusterous  energy  that  seemed  inspired 
by  the  equinoctial  gales  of  March.  Jenny's  fingers  would  dive 
into  his  mouth  to  discover  teeth  that  were  indeed  pearls  in 
their  whiteness  and  rarity.  Exquisite  adumbrations  of  herself 
were  traceable  in  his  countenance,  and  so  far,  at  any  rate,  his 
hair  was  curled  and  silvery  as  hers  was  once  famed  to  be.  His 
cheeks  were  rose-fired;  his  eyes  were  deep  and  gay.  Only  his 
ears  seemed,  whatever  way  they  were  judged,  to  follow  his 
father's  shape;  but  even  they  at  present  merely  gave  him  a 
pleasant  elfin  look.    Jenny  was  very  proud  of  young  Frank. 

Trewhella,  with  the  lapse  of  time,  and  after  another  violent 
outbreak  on  account  of  the  arrival  of  a  letter  from  Castleton, 
ceased  to  importune  his  wife  with  jealous  denunciations  of 
the  old  glittering  days  before  they  met.  The  farm  prospered: 
he  took  to  counting  his  money  more  than  ever  since  an  heir 
had  given  him  a  pledge  for  the  commemoration  of  his  thrift. 
During  the  winter  Jenny  drove  once  or  twice  in  the  high  cart 
to  Camston,  and,  with  May  to  help  her,  scornfully  turned  out 
the  contents  of  the  drapery  shops.  On  these  occasions  Granfa 
was  made  responsible  for  young  Frank,  and  when  they  came 
back  he  had  to  give  a  very  full  account  of  his  regency.  Other 
winter  events  included  a  visit  from    Mr.    Corin,    who    had 

394 


May  Morning  395 


opened  a  dairy  away  up  in  the  east  of  the  Duchy.  He  annoyed 
Jenny  by  his  exaggerated  congratulations,  embracing  as  they 
did  himself  as  much  as  Zachary  and  her.  Mrs.  Trewhella 
would  from  time  to  time  announce  her  surrender  of  the  house- 
hold keys;  but  Jenny  was  not  anxious  to  control  anything  ex- 
cept her  son,  and  the  old  woman,  manifestly  pleased,  con- 
tinued to  superintend  with  blink  and  cackle  maid  Emily.  Jenny 
lost  her  fear  of  bullocks,  dreaded  insects  no  longer,  and  might 
have  been  a  Cornish  maid  all  her  life,  save  for  her  clear-cut 
Cockney,  to  which  not  a  single  western  burr  adhered.  She 
no  longer  pined  for  London;  was  never  sentimental  towards 
eight  o'clock;  and  certainly  could  not  be  supposed  to  exist  in 
an  atmosphere  of  regret.  At  the  same  time,  she  could  not  be 
said  to  have  settled  down,  because  her  husband  was  perpetually 
an  intrusion  on  any  final  serenity.  She  could  not  bear  the  way 
he  ate,  the  grit  and  soil  and  raggedness  of  his  face;  she  loathed 
the  grimy  scars  upon  his  hands,  his  smell  of  corduroy.  She 
hated  his  mental  outlook,  his  pre-occupation  with  hell,  his  nar- 
row pride,  and  lack  of  humor,  his  pricking  avarice  and  mean 
vanity,  his  moral  cowardice  and  religious  bravery,  his  grossness 
and  cunning  and  boastfulness  and  cruelty  to  animals.  She 
feared  the  storms  that  would  one  day  arise  between  him  and 
his  son.  She  felt  even  now  the  clashing  of  the  two  hostile 
temperaments:  already  there  were  signs  of  future  struggles, 
and  it  was  not  just  a  fancy  that  young  Frank  was  always 
peevish  at  his  father's  approach. 

The  equinox  sank  asleep  to  an  April  lullaby.  Lambs  bleated 
on  the  storm-washed  air.  The  ocean  plumed  itself  like  a 
mating  bird.  Then  followed  three  weeks  of  gray  weather  and 
much  restlessness  on  the  part  of  young  Frank,  who  cried  and 
fumed  and  was  very  naughty  indeed.  What  with  Frank  and 
the  southeast  wind  and  the  cold  rain,  Jenny's  nerves  suffered, 
and  when  I\Lay  morning  broke  in  a  dazzle,  she  thought  it 
would  be  a  good  plan  to  leave  young  Frank  with  Granfa,  and 
in  May's  company  to  go  for  a  long  walk.  May  was  delighted 
and  together  they  set  out. 
26 


39^ 


Carnival 


They  followed  the  path  of  the  valley  past  the  groves  of 
arbutus,  past  the  emerald  meadows  down  into  the  sandy  waste 
over  which  the  stream  carried  little  pebbles  to  the  sea,  flowing 
over  the  wide  shallows  like  a  diamonded  lattice.  They 
plunged  in  the  towans  that  never  seemed  to  change  with  the 
seasons.  They  rested  in  the  warm  hollows  under  larksong. 
They  climbed  precipices  and  ran  along  ridges,  until  at  last  they 
raced  gloriously  down  a  virgin  drift  out  on  to  the  virgin  sands 
on  which,  a  long  way  off,  the  waves  were  breaking  in  slow 
curves,  above  them  a  film  of  spray  tossed  backwards  by  the 
breeze  blowing  from  the  shore. 

Jenny  sat  in  the  solitude,  making  a  necklace  of  wine-stained 
shells.  She  was  dressed  in  some  shade  of  fawn  that  seemed 
to  be  absorbed  by  these  wide  flat  sands,  so  that  she  became 
smaller  and  slighter.  She  wore  a  silver-gray  bonnet  set  closely 
round  her  cheeks  in  a  ruching  of  ivory.  May  was  in  scarlet 
and  looked,  as  she  lay  there  in  the  castness,  not  much  bigger 
than  Jenny's  cap  of  scarlet  stockinette,  left  long  ago  on  the 
beach  at  Clacton. 

"Hullo,  there's  somebody  coming  along  the  sands.  Can  you 
see  them?"  asked  Jenny. 

"A  long  way  ofif?"  inquired  May,  peering. 

"Yes,  just  a  speck — now — where  those  rocks  are.  No, 
you're  looking  in  the  wrong  place.  Much  further  along," 
directed  Jenny. 

"You  can  see  a  way,"  said  May. 

The  figure  drew  nearer,  but  was  still  too  far  of?  for  them 
to  determine  the  quality  or  sex,  as  they  watched  the  sea-swal- 
lows keep  ever  their  distance  ahead,  swift-circling  com- 
panies. 

"I  wonder  who  It  is?"  said  Jenny. 

"I  can't  ever  remember  seeing  anyone  on  the  beach  before," 
said  May. 

"Nor  can  I.     It's  a  man." 

"Is  it?" 

"Or  I  think  so,"  Jenny  added. 


May  Morning  397 

"What  a  line  of  footmarks  there'll  be  when  he's  gone  past," 
said  May. 

"It  is  a  man,"  Jenny  asserted. 

Suddenly  she  went  dead  white,  flushed  crimson,  whitened 
again  and  dropped  the  half-strung  necklace  of  shells. 

"I  believe  I  know  him,  too,"  she  murmured. 

"Shut  up,"  scoffed  May.     "Unless  it's  Fuz?" 

"No,  it's  not  him.  May,  I'd  like  to  be  alone  when  he  comes 
along.  Or  I  don't  think  I'll  stay.  Yes,  I  will.  And  no, 
don't  go.    You  stay,  too.     It  is  him.     It  is." 

Maurice  approached  them.  He  gave  much  the  same  im- 
pression as  on  the  first  night  of  the  ballet  of  Cupid,  when  at 
the  end  of  the  court  he  raised  his  hat  to  Jenny  and  Irene. 

"I — I  wondered  if  I  should  meet  you,"  he  said. 

His  presence  was  less  disturbing  to  Jenny  than  his  slow  ad- 
vance. She  greeted  him  casually  as  if  she  were  saluting  an 
acquaintance  passed  every  morning: 

"Hullo," 

Maurice  was  silent. 

"Isn't  it  a  lovely  morning?"  said  Jenny.  "This  is  my  sister 
May." 

Maurice  raised  his  cap  a  second  time. 

"I  wonder,"  he  said,  looking  intently  at  Jenny,  "I  wonder  if 

— if "  he  plunged  into  the  rest  of  the  sentence.     "Can  I 

speak  to  you  alone  a  minute?" 

"Whatever  for?"  asked  Jenny. 

"Oh,  I  wanted  to  ask  you  something." 

Jenny  debated  with  herself  a  moment.  Why  not?  He 
had  no  power  to  move  her  now.  She  was  able  coldly  to  regard 
him  standing  there  on  the  seashore,  a  stranger,  no  more  to  her 
than  a  piece  of  driftwood  left  by  the  tide, 

"I'll  catch  you  up  in  a  minute,"  she  said  to  May, 

"All  right,  I'll  go  on.  Pleased  to  have  met  you,"  said  May, 
shaking  hands  shyly  with  Maurice. 

He  and  Jenny  watched  her  going  towards  the  towans. 
When  she  was  out  of  earshot,  Maurice  burst  forth: 


398 


Carnival 


"Jenny,  Jenny,  I've  longed  for  this  moment," 

"You  must  have  treated  yourself  very  badly  then,"  she  an- 
swered. 

"I  did.     I " 

"Look,"  said  Jenny  sharply.  "It's  no  good  for  you  to  start 
off,  because  I  don't  want  to  listen  to  an^'thing  you  say.  I  don't 
•want  to." 

"I  don't  deserve  you  should,"  Maurice  humbly  agreed.  "All 
the  same  I  wish  you  would." 

It  may  have  been  that  in  his  voice  some  vibrant  echo  of 
past  pleading  touched  her,  so  that  across  a  gulf  of  four  years 
the  old  Jenny  asked: 

"Why  should  I  ?" 

He  seemed  on  fire  to  seize  the  chance  of  explanation  and 
would  no  doubt  have  forthwith  plunged  into  a  wilderness  of 
emotions,  had  not  Jenny  seen  May  signaling  from  the  towans. 

"She  wants  me  to  go  over  to  her." 

"But  you'll  come  out  here  again?" 

"I  might — I  might  come  out  on  the  cliffs  over  there."  She 
pointed  towards  Crickabella.  "I  don't  know.  I  don't  think  I 
shall.  But  don't  try  and  see  me  at  home,  because  I  wouldn't 
know  you  there." 

She  ran  from  him  suddenly  across  the  sands  back  to  May. 

"Why  did  you  wave  like  that?"  she  asked. 

"I  think  there's  been  somebody  watching  you,"  said  May, 
looking  pale  and   anxious. 


Chapter  XLVII:    Nightlight  Time 

TREWHELLA  gave  no  sign  that  he  knew  anything 
of  the  event  on  the  sands;  yet  Jenny's  instinct  was 
to  avoid  a  meeting  with  Maurice.  Once  or  twice, 
indeed,  she  was  on  the  point  of  starting  out;  but  she  never 
brought  herself  to  the  actual  effort,  and  the  May  days  went 
by  without  her  leaving  the  precincts  of  Bochyn.  Maurice  had 
made  but  a  small  impression  upon  her  emotion ;  had  raised  not 
a  single  heartbeat  after  the  first  shock  of  his  approach  over 
the  long  sands.  She  had  no  curiosity  to  discover  why  he  had 
come  down  here,  with  what  end  in  view,  with  what  impulse. 
She  cared  not  to  know  what  his  life  had  been  in  those  four 
years,  what  seas  or  shores  he  had  adventured,  what  women  he 
had  known.  Yet  somehow  she  felt,  through  a  kind  of  belated 
sympathy,  that  every  morning  he  was  out  on  the  cliffs  by 
Crickabella  watching  for  a  sight  of  her  coming  up  the  hill. 
Should  she  go?  Should  she  finally  dismiss  him,  speaking  coldly, 
contemptuously,  lashing  him  with  her  scorn  and  wounded  pride 
and  dead  love?  June  was  in  view,  and  still  she  paused.  June 
came  in,  royally  azure.  Yet  she  hesitated;  while  young  Frank 
waved  to  the  butterflies  and  grew  daily  in  the  sun  like  a  peach. 

"He  do  look  so  happy  as  the  King  of  Spain,"  said  old  Mr. 
Champion.  "Grand  lill  chap,  he  is  sure  enough.  Do  'ee  hear 
what  I'm  speaking,  my  young  handsome?" 

Granfa  bent  down   and   tickled   the   boy. 

"Bless  his  heart,"  said  Jenny. 

399 


400  Carnival 

"I  were  down  to  Trewinnard  yesterday,"  said  Granfa,  ''and 
I  were  talking  about  him  to  a  gentleman,  or  I  should  say  an 
artist,  who  belongs  painting  down  along.  Says  he's  in  a  mind 
to  bide  here  all  the  summertime.  He  do  like  it  very  well,  I 
believe." 

"What's  he  like?"  Jenny  asked. 

"This  artist?  Oh,  he's  a  decent-looking  young  chap.  Noth- 
ing anyone  could  dislike  about  him.  Very  quiet,  they're  tell- 
ing, and  a  bit  melan-choly.  But  I  believe  that's  a  common 
case  with  artists.  And  I'm  not  surprised,  for  it  must  be  a 
brim  melancholy  job  painting  an  old  cliff  that  any  ornary  man 
wouldn't  want  to  look  at  twice,  leave  alone  days  at  a  stretch. 
But  he  told  me  he  didn't  properly  belong  to  paint  at  all.  He 
said  his  own  trade  was  writing." 

Unquestionably  this  was  Maurice.  All  day  Jenny  thought 
of  him  out  on  the  cliffs.  The  idea  began  to  oppress  her,  and 
she  felt  haunted  by  his  presence;  it  would  be  better  to  meet 
him  and  forbid  his  longer  stay.  To-morrow  would  offer  a  fine 
opportunity,  because  Zachary  was  going  to  Plymouth  to  ar- 
range about  the  purchase  of  some  farm  implements  and  would 
not  only  be  away  to-night,  but  was  unlikely  to  be  back  till  late 
the  next  day.  Not  that  it  mattered  whether  he  went  away  or 
not;  yet  somehow  she  would  like  to  lie  awake  thinking  of 
what  she  would  say  to  Maurice,  and  to  lie  awake  beside  her 
husband  was  inconceivable  to  Jenny.  How  much  better  to  be 
alone  with  young  Frank.  She  would  certainly  go  to-morrow. 
Maurice  might  not  be  there:  if  he  were  not,  she  would  be 
glad,  and  there  would  be  an  end  of  the  dismay  caused  by  his 
presence,  for  she  would  not  move  a  step  from  Bochyn  till 
she  heard  of  his  departure. 

Trewhella  now  came  out  into  the  garden  where  they  were 
sitting.  He  was  equipped  for  Plymouth,  and  looked  just  the 
same  as  on  the  afternoon  Jenny  met  him  at  Hagworth  Street. 
He  was  wearing  the  same  ill-fitting  suit  of  broadcloth  and  the 
same  gleaming  tie  of  red  satin. 

"Well,  I'm  going  Plymouth,"  he  announced. 


Night  light  Time  401 

"You're  staying  the  night?"  she  asked. 

"Ess,  I  think." 

"Well,  are  you?" 

"Ess,  I  believe." 

He  never  would  commit  himself  to  a  definite  statement. 

"What  time  are  you  coming  back  to-morrow?" 

"In  the  afternoon,  I  suppose." 

"In  the  afternoon?"  she  repeated. 

Trewhella  looked  at  her  quickly. 

"Kiss  me  good-b3'e,  my  dear." 

"No,  I  don't  want  to,"  said  Jenny,  freezing. 

He  looked  harder  at  her  and  pulled  his  mustache;  then  he 
leaned  down  to  prod  a  farewell  into  his  son's  ribs.  Young 
Frank  immediately  began  to  yell.  The  father  chuckled  sar- 
donically and  strode  off  to  the  cart,  calling  loudly  as  he  went 
for  Old  Man  Veal.  He  paused,  with  his  foot  on  the  step,  to 
impress  something  on  the  stealthy  old  man.  Then  he  told 
Thomas  to  get  down  and  Veal  to  take  his  place.  There  was 
a  sound  of  wheels,  and  everybody  sighed  with  relief. 

The  long  drowsy  June  day  buzzed  on.  They  all  lay  about 
in  the  shade,  wishing  they  could  splash  through  the  stream 
like  the  cattle. 

"I  can't  think  why  we  don't  all  go  paddling,  I  can't,"  said 
May. 

"Oh,  why  ever  not — not  with  young  Frank?"  cried  Jenny, 
clapping  her  hands. 

"Of  course." 

"And  Granfa  must  come,"  Jenny  insisted. 

"Oh,  no,  no,  no,"  declared  Granfa,  smiling  very  proudly 
at  the  suggestion.  "No,  no,  no!  But  I  might  go  along  with 
'ee  and  pick  a  few  wrinkles  off  the  rocks." 

Jenny  thought  how  imperative  it  was  for  Maurice  to  be  out 
of  these  planned  allurements  of  summer.  She  would  never 
enjoy  herself,  if  all  the  time  she  felt  he  were  close  by,  liable 
to  appear  suddenly.     Certainly  she  would  see  him  to-morrow. 

"We  might  even  bathe,"  said  May  dauntlessly. 


402  Carnival 

"Well,  don't  'ee  tell  Zack,  then,"  Granfa  advised.  "For  I 
suppose  he  can  see  the  devil  in  the  deep  sea  so  clear  as  any- 
vi^here  else.    That  man's  got  a  nose  for  evil,  I  believe." 

The  sun  was  now^  hanging  over  the  marsh  in  a  dazzling 
haze  of  gold  in  which  the  midges  danced  innumerable.  Long 
shadows  threw  themselves  across  the  hills.  The  stream  of 
light  dried  up  as  the  sun  went  down  into  the  sea.  Cool  scented 
airs,  heralds  of  night,  traveled  up  the  valley;  traveled  swiftly 
like  the  spray  of  fountains. 

Jenny  went  to  bed  soon  after  half-past  nine.  It  was 
scarcely  dark.  Along  her  sill  were  great  crimson  roses  like 
cups  of  cool  wine,  and  from  every  ghostly  white  border  of  the 
garden  came  up  the  delicious  odor  of  pinks  in  full  June  bloom. 
Moths  were  dancing,  fluttering,  hovering:  a  large  white  owl 
swept  past  in  a  soundless  curve.  And  while  she  brooded  upon 
this  perfumed  silence,  away  in  London  the  girls  were  trooping 
down  for  the  second  ballet,  were  giving  the  last  touch  with  a 
haresfoot  to  their  carmine  beauty,  were  dabbing  the  last  powder 
on  their  cheeks  or  rubbing  the  liquid  white  upon  their  wrists 
and  hands.  How  hot  it  must  be  in  the  theater.  She  heard 
quite  plainly  the  tinkle  of  the  sequins  and  spangles  as  the  girls 
came  trooping  down  the  stone  stairs  into  the  wings  to  wait 
there  for  the  curtain's  rise.  Then  she  perceived  in  the  dim  light 
Old  Man  Veal  diligently  cleaning  his  master's  gun.  Wishing 
he  would  not  sit  there  underneath  her  window,  she  turned  back 
into  the  tall,  shadowy  room  and  lit  the  candle.  Soon  she 
heard  his  retreating  footsteps,  and  watched  him  go  down  the 
garden  path  with  the  slim  and  wicked  gun  beneath  his  arm. 
Young  Frank,  rose-misted  with  dreams  of  butterflies  and 
painted  rubber  balls,  lay  in  his  hooded  cot.  Shading  him  with 
her  hand,  which  the  candlelight  made  lucent  as  a  shell,  she 
watched  him  lying  there,  his  fingers  clasped  tightly  round  a 
coral  hung  with  silver  bells,  his  woolly  lamb  beside  his  cheek. 
Jenny  wondered,  if  she  had  been  a  boy,  whether  she  would 
have  looked  exactly  like  young  Frank.  Then  she  fell  to  specu- 
lating whether,  had  he  belonged  to  her  and  Maurice,  he  would 


Night  light  Time  403 

have  been  the  same  dear  rogue  as  now.  Oh,  he  was  hers, 
hers  only,  and  whatever  man  were  his  father,  he  would  be 
nothing  more  than  hers! 

She  went  to  see  how  May  was  getting  on,  and  in  company 
they  undressed,  as  they  used  to  undress  before  Jenny  went  on 
the  stage.  Soon  both  of  them  in  long  white  nightgowns,  each 
with  a  golden  candle,  pattered  in  once  more  to  marvel  at 
young  Frank. 

"Oh,  I  must  have  him  in  bed  with  me.  May." 

"Well,  why  don't  you?" 

Carefully  they  lifted  him,  and,  warm  with  sun-dyed  sleep, 
laid  him  in  Jenny's  cool  bed. 

"Light  the  nightlight,  there's  a  love,"  said  Jenny.  "Good 
night." 

"Good  night,"  whispered  May,  fading  like  a  ghost  through 
the  black  doorway,  leaving  the  tall  room  to  Jenny  and  Frank. 
Tree  shadows,  conjured  by  the  moon,  waved  on  the  walls,  but 
very  faintly,  for  the  nightlight  burned  with  steady  flame  in 
the  opalescent  saucer.  Jenny  settled  herself  to  think  what  she 
should  say  to  Maurice  next  morning.  But  soon  she  forgot  all 
about  Maurice,  and  "Fd  rather  like  to  have  a  little  girl,"  was 
her  last  thought  before  she  went  dreaming. 


Chapter  XLVIII:  Garni  Vale 

JENNY  woke  up  the  next  morning  in  a  gray  land  of  mist. 
A  sea-fog  had  come  in  to  obliterate  Trewinnard  and 
even  the  sparkling  month  of  June,  creating  a  new  and 
impalpable  world,  a  strange  undated  season.  Above  the 
elm  trees  and  the  hill-tops  the  fog  floated  and  swayed  in  va- 
porous eddies.  Jenny's  first  impulse  was  to  postpone  the  meet- 
ing on  the  cliffs,  and  yet  the  day  somehow  suited  the  enterprise. 
Shrouded  fittingly,  she  would  face  whatever  ghosts  Maurice 
had  power  to  raise. 

"I'm  going  for  a  walk,"  she  told  May,  "by  myself.  I  want 
to  tell  Maurice  not  to  hang  about  here  any  more  because  it 
gets  on  my  nerves." 

"I'll  look  after  Frank  when  you're  gone,"  said  May. 

"Don't  let  him  eat  any  more  wool  off  that  lamb  of  his, 
will  you?" 

"All  right." 

"I  sha'n't  be  long.     Or  I  don't  expect  so." 

"If  he  comes  back  from  Plymouth  before  you  come  in,  where 
shall  I  say  you've  gone?"  May  asked. 

"Oh,  tell  him  'Rats!'  I  can't  help  his  troubles.  So  long," 
said  Jenny  emphatically. 

"Say  'ta — ta'  nicely  to  your  mother,  young  Frank,"  com- 
manded Aunt  May. 

As  Jenny  faded  into  the  mist,  the  boy  hammered  his  fare- 
wells upon  the  window-pane;  and  for  awhile  in  the  colorless 
air  she  saw  his  rosy  cheeks  burning  like  lamps,  or  like  the  love 
for  him  in  her  own  heart.     Before  she  turned  up  the  drive, 

404 


Carni  Vale  405 

she  waited  to  listen  for  the  click  and  tinkle  of  Granfa's  horti- 
culture, but  there  was  no  sound  of  his  spade.  Farther  along 
she  met  Thomas. 

"Morning!     Mrs.  Trewhella!" 

"Morning,  young  Thomas." 

"Going  for  a  walk,  are  'ee?" 

"On  the  cliffs,"  Jenny  nodded. 

"You  be  careful  how  you  do  walk  there.  I  wouldn't  like 
for  'ee  to  fall  over." 

"Don't  you  worry.  I'll  take  jolly  good  care  I  don't  do 
that." 

"Well,  anybody  ought  to  be  careful  on  they  cliffs.  Nasty 
old  place  that  is  on  a  foggy  morning."  Then  as  she  became  in 
a  few  steps  a  wraith,  he  chanted  in  farewell  courtesy,  "Mrs. 
Trewhella!" 

Along  the  farm  road  Jenny  found  herself  continually  turning 
round  to  detect  in  her  wake  an  unseeen  follower.  She  had  a 
feeling  of  pursuit  through  the  shifting  vagueness  all  around, 
and  stopped  to  listen.  There  was  no  footstep :  only  the  drip- 
drip,  drip-drip  of  the  fog  from  the  elm  boughs.  Before  she 
knew  that  she  had  gone  so  far,  the  noise  of  the  sea  sounded 
from  the  grayness  ahead,  and  beyond  there  was  the  groan  of  a 
siren  from  some  uncertain  ship.  Again  she  paused  for  footsteps, 
and  there  was  nothing  but  the  drip-drip,  drip-drip  of  the  fog 
in  the  quickset  hedge.  On  the  steep  road  that  ran  up  towards 
Crickabella,  the  fog  lifted  from  her  immediate  neighborhood, 
and  she  could  see  the  washed-out  sky  and  silver  sun  with  vapors 
curling  across  the  strange  luminousness.  On  either  side, 
thicker  by  contrast,  the  mist  hung  in  curtains  dreary  and  im- 
penetrable. Very  soon  the  transparency  in  which  she  walked 
was  veiled  again,  and  through  an  annihilation  of  shape  and 
color  and  scent  and  sound,  she  pressed  forward  to  the  sum- 
mit. 

On  the  plateau,  although  the  fog  was  dense  enough  to  mask 
the  edge  of  the  clifiE  at  a  distance  of  fifty  yards  and  to  merge 
in  a  gray  confusion  sky  and  sea  beyond,  the  fresher  atmosphere 


4o6 


Carnival 


lightened  the  general  effect.  She  could  watch  the  fog  sweep- 
ing up  and  down  in  diaphanous  forms  and  winged  nonentities. 
The  silence  in  the  hedgeless,  treeless  country  was  profound. 
The  sea,  oily  calm  in  such  weather,  gave  very  seldom  a  low 
sob  in  some  cavern  beneath  the  cliff.  Far  out  a  solitary  gull 
cried  occasionally. 

How  absurd,  thought  Jenny  suddenly,  to  expect  Maurice  on 
such  a  day.  What  painting  was  possible  in  so  elusive  a  land- 
scape, so  immaterial  a  scene?  He  was  not  at  all  likely  to  be 
there.  She  stood  for  a  moment  listening,  and  was  violently 
startled  by  the  sight  of  some  animal  richly  hued  even  in  such 
a  negation  of  color.  The  fox  slipped  by  her  with  lowered 
brush  and  ears  laid  back,  vanishing  presently  over  the  side  of 
the  cliff.  She  had  thought  for  a  second  that  it  was  Trewhella's 
dog,  and  her  heart  beat  very  quickly  in  the  eerie  imagination 
of  herself  and  his  master  alone  in  this  grayness.  She  walked 
on  over  the  cushions  of  heather,  pricking  her  ankles  in  the  low 
bushes  of  gorse.  Burnet  roses  were  in  bloom,  lying  like  shells 
on  the  ground.  Ahead  of  her  she  saw  a  lonely  flower  tremu- 
lous in  the  damp  mist.  It  was  a  blue  columbine,  a  solitary 
plant  full  blown.  She  thought  how  beautiful  it  looked  and 
stooped  to  pluck  it.  On  second  thoughts  she  decided  that  it 
would  be  a  shame  not  to  let  it  live,  this  lovely  deep-blue  flower, 
nodding  faintly. 

Jenny  stood  once  more  fronting  the  vapors  on  each  side  in 
turn,  and  was  on  the  point  of  going  home,  when  she  perceived 
a  shadow  upon  the  mist  that  with  approach  acquired  the  out- 
lines of  a  man  and  very  soon  proved  to  be  Maurice.  She 
noticed  how  pale  he  was  and  anxious,  very  unlike  the  old 
Maurice,  even  unlike  himself  of  five  or  six  weeks  ago. 

"You've  come  at  last,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  I've  come  to  say  you  mustn't  stay  here  no  more.  It 
worries  me." 

"Jenny,"  he  said,  "I  knew  I'd  been  a  fool  before  I  saw  you 
again  last  first  of  May.  I've  known  for  four  years  what  a  fool 
and  knave  I'd  been;  but,  oh,  God,  I  never  knew  so  clearly  till 


Carni  Vale  407 

the  other  day,  till  I'd  hung  about  these  cliffs  waiting  for  you 
to  come." 

"Where  was  the  good?"  she  asked.     "It's  years  too  late 

now." 

"When  I  heard  from  Castleton  where  you  were,  I  tried  not 
to  come.  He  told  me  I  should  make  things  worse.  He  said 
it  would  be  a  crime.  And  I  tried  not  to  all  this  winter.  But 
you  haunted  me.  I  could  not  rest,  and  in  April  the  desire 
to  see  you  became  a  madness.     I  had  to  come." 

"I  think  you  acted  very  silly.  It  isn't  as  if  you  could  do 
anything  by  coming.     I  never  used  to  think  about  you." 

"You  didn't?"  he  repeated,  agonized. 

"Never.     Never  once,"  she  stabbed.     "I'd  forgotten  you." 

"I  deserve  it." 

"Of  course  you  do.  You  can't  mess  up  a  girl's  life  and  then 
come  and  say  you're  sorry  the  same  as  if  you'd  trod  on  her 
toe." 

They  were  walking  along  involuntarily,  and  through  the 
mist  Jenny's  words  of  sense,  hardened  to  adamantine  sharp- 
ness by  suffering,  cut  clear  and  cruel  and  true.  She  did  not 
like,  however,  to  prosecute  the  close  encounter  in  such  a  pro- 
fusion of  space.  She  fancied  her  words  were  lost  in  the  great 
fog,  and  sought  for  some  familiar  outline  that  should  point 
the  way  to  Crickabella.  Presently  a  narrow  serpentine  path 
gave  her  the  direction. 

"Along  here,"  she  said.  "I  can't  talk  up  here.  I  feel  as  if 
there  must  be  listeners  in  this  fog.  I  wish  it  would  get 
bright." 

"It's  like  my  life  has  been  without  you,"  said  Maurice. 

"Shut  up,"  she  stabbed  again,  "and  don't  talk  silly.  Your 
life's  been  quite  all  right  till  you  took  a  sudden  fancy  to  see 
me  again." 

"Walk  carefully,"  said  Maurice  humbly.  "We're  very  near 
the  cliff's  edge." 

Land  and  air  met  in  a  wreathed  obscurity. 

"Down  here,"  said  Jenny. 


4o8 


Carnival 


They  scrambled  down  into  Crickabella,  slipping  on  the  pulpy 
leaves  of  withered  bluebells,  stumbling  over  clumps  of  fern  and 
drenching  themselves  in  the  foxgloves,  whose  woolly  leaves 
held  the  dripping  fog. 

"This  is  where  I  often  used  to  sit,"  said  Jenny.  "Only  it's 
too  wet  in  the  grass  now.  There's  a  rock  here  that's  fairly 
dry,  though  it  does  look  rather  like  a  gravestone  sticking  up 
out  of  the  ground." 

They  were  now  about  half-way  down  the  escarpment  from 
the  top  of  which  the  rampart  of  black  cliff,  sheer  on  either 
side  of  the  path,  ran  up  for  twenty  feet,  so  far  as  could  be 
judged  in  the  deceptive  atmosphere.  Jenny  leaned  against  the 
stone  outcrop  and  faced  Maurice. 

"Jenny,"  he  began,  "when  I  didn't  turn  up  at  Waterloo  that 
first  of  May,  I  must  have  been  mad.  I  don't  want  to  make 
excuses,  but  I  must  have  been  mad." 

"Yes,  we  can  all  say  that,  when  we've  done  something  we 
shouldn't  have." 

"I  know  it's  not  an  excuse.  But  I  went  away  in  a  jangle 
of  nerves.  I  set  my  heart  on  you  coming  out  to  Spain,  and 
when  you  wouldn't  and  I  was  there  and  thought  of  the  strain 
of  a  passionate  love  that  seemed  never  likely  to  come  to  any- 
thing vital,  I  gave  up  all  of  a  sudden.  I  can't  explain.  It 
was  like  that  statue.  I  had  to  break  it,  and  I  broke  my  heart 
in  the  same  way." 

"If  you'd  come  back,"  said  Jenny,  determined  he  should 
know  all  his  folly,  "I'd  have  done  anything,  anything  you 
asked.     I'd  have  come  to  live  with  you  forever." 

"Oh,  don't  torture  me  with  the  irony  of  it  all.  Why  were 
you  so  uncertain,  then?" 

"That's  my  business,"  she  said  coolly. 

"But  I  never  really  was  out  of  love  with  you.  I  was 
always  madly  in  love,"  Maurice  cried.  "I  traveled  all  over 
Europe,  thinking  I'd  finished  with  love.  I  tried  to  be  happy 
without  you  and  couldn't  because  I  hadn't  got  you.  I  adored 
you  the  first  moment  I  saw  you.    I  adore  you  now  and  forever. 


Carni  Vale  409 

Oh,  believe  me,  my  heart  of  hearts,  my  life,  my  soul,  I  love 
you  now  more,  more  than  ever." 

"Only  because  I'm  someone  else's,"  said  Jenny. 
"No,"  he  cried.  "No!  no!  The  passion  and  impetuousness 
and  unrestraint  is  all  gone.  I  love  you  now — it  sounds  like 
cant — for  yourself,  for  your  character,  your  invincible  joyous- 
ness,  your  glory  in  life,  your  perfection  of  form.  Words! 
What  are  they?  See  how  this  fog  destroys  the  world,  making 
it  ghostly.  My  mere  passion  for  you  is  gone  like  the  world. 
It's  there,  it  must  be  there  always,  but  your  spirit,  your  per- 
sonality can  destroy  it  in  a  moment.  Oh,  what  a  tangle  of 
nonsense.  Forgive  me.  I  want  forgiveness,  and  once  you 
said  'Bless  you.'     I  want  that." 

"I  don't  hate  you  now,"  Jenny  said,  "I  did  for  a  time. 
But  not  now.  Now  you're  nothing.  You  just  aren't  at  all. 
I've  got  a  boy  who  I  love — such  a  rogue,  bless  him — and  what 
are  you  any  more?" 

"I   deserve  all  this.     But  once  you  were  sorry  when   I — 

when  I " 

"Ah,  once,"  she  said.  "Once  /  was  mad,  too.  I  nearly 
died.  I  didn't  care  for  nothing,  not  for  ^zn^'thing.  You  was 
the  first  man  that  made  me  feel  things  like  love.  You!  And 
I  gave  you  more  than  I'd  ever  given  anyone,  even  my  mother. 
And  you  threw  it  all  back  in  my  face — because  you  are  a  man, 
I  suppose,  and  can't  understand.  And  when  I  was  mad  to  do 
something  that  would  change  me  from  ever,  ever  being  soppy 
again,  from  ever  loving  anyone  again,  ever,  ever,  I  went  and 
gave  myself  to  a  rotter — a  real,  dirty  rotter.  Just  nothing  but 
that — if  you  know  what  I  mean.  And  that  was  your  fault. 
You  started  me  off  by  teaching  me  love.  I  wanted  to  be  loved. 
Yes.  But  I  gave  too  much  of  myself  to  you  as  it  was,  and  I 
gave  nothing  to  him  really.  Only  anyone  would  say  I  did. 
And  then  my  mother  went  mad,  because  she  thought  I  was 
gone  gay;  and  she  died;  and  I  got  married  to  what's  nothing 
more  than  an  animal.  But  they're  all  animals.  All  men. 
Some  are  nicer  sorts  of  animals  than  others,  but  they're  all  the 


4 1  o  Carnival 

same.  And  that's  me  since  you  left  me.  Only  now  I've  got  a 
boy,  and  he's  like  me.  He's  got  my  eyes,  and  I'm  going  to 
teach  him,  so  as  he  isn't  an  animal,  see?  And  I've  got  my 
little  sister  May,  who  I  promised  I'd  look  after,  and  I  have. 
.  .  .  Go  away,  Maurice,  leave  me.  I  don't  want  you.  I 
can't  forgive  you.  I  can  only  just  not  care  whether  you're  there 
or  not.  But  go  away,  because  I  don't  want  to  be  worried  by 
other  people." 

Maurice  bowed  his  head. 

"I  see,  I  see  that  I  have  suffered  nothing,"  he  said.  "Super- 
ficial fool  that  I  am.  Shallow,  shallow  ass,  incompetent,  dull 
and  unimaginative  block!  I'm  glad  I've  seen  you.  I'm  glad 
I've  heard  you  say  all  that.  You've  taught  me  something — 
perhaps  in  time.  I'm  only  twenty-eight  now — and  fancy, 
you're  only  twenty-four — so  I  can  go  and  think  what  might 
have  been  and,  better,  what  I  may  be  through  you,  what  I  will 
be.  I  won't  say  I'm  sorry.  That  would  be  an  impertinence 
...    as  you  said,  I  simply  am  not  at  all." 

The  mist  closed  round  them  thicker  for  a  moment;  then 
seemed  to  lighten  very  slowly.  Jenny  was  staring  at  the  clifiE's 
top. 

"Is  that  a  bush  blowing  up  and  down  or  a  man's  head  bob- 
bing?" 

"I  don't  see  any  man,"  he  answered. 

"Good-bye,"  Jenny  said. 

"Good-bye." 

She  turned  to  the  upward  path,  pulling  herself  up  the 
quicker  by  grasping  handfuls  of  fern  fronds.  Suddenly  there 
was  a  shout  through  the  fog. 

"Snared,  my  lill  wild  thing!" 

There  came  a  report.  Jenny  fell  backwards  into  the  ferns 
and  foxgloves  and  withered  bluebells. 

"Good  God!"  cried  Maurice.     "You're  hurt." 

"Something  funny's  happened.  Oh!  Oh!  It's  burning," 
she  shrieked.     "Oh,  my  throat!  my  throat!    ...   my  throat!" 

The  sea-birds  wheeled  about  the  mist,  screaming  dismay. 


(5) 


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